


More Eloquent Than Words

by MistressPandora



Series: Gods of War [6]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Infidelity, Jamie doesn't hit anyone, Mistakes Are Made, Multi, Polyamory, brief domestic violence, they'll get through it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:07:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26435428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressPandora/pseuds/MistressPandora
Summary: When Jamie and Lord John decided that blending their families would be the safest place for all of them, Jamie hadn't counted on the feelings that his constant, close proximity to Grey would bring to the surface. Now Jamie can't take the wanting anymore, but he's still madly in love with Claire. Something's got to give.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey, Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey
Series: Gods of War [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653670
Comments: 273
Kudos: 124
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Outlander Bingo Challenge





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is going to emotionally messy. Terrible decisions are made. You might hate our heroes for a while. Please heed the tags. As is my custom, I'll includes notes warning of potentially triggering content.
> 
> This series still functions as independent stories, but now that a chronology is emerging, I'll be reordering them. 
> 
> This chapter fills my Outlander Bingo square: **Jamie/John**

It had been Claire’s idea that Jamie and Lord John take a weekly meal together, just the two of them. “It’s a lot to manage, building our odd little alliance,” she’d said. “It will only work if you two can maintain your friendship. You and John have a complicated history of… well, you have a complicated history. It’s important that you reinforce that foundation of trust and respect between you.”

Jamie loved his family more than anything. It was more than he’d dared to wish for, all those lonely years, so far in the past. To have Claire with him, and Fergus. Marsali, Young Ian and his new wife. His sister. The bairns. And now Willie and John. All that was missing was Brianna, Roger Mac, and their children. _Dear Lord, please let them be well and happy._ Jamie could bask in the closeness of those he loved for hours on end, but he did occasionally find himself in need of a quiet respite, some time spent in easy yet intellectually stimulating conversation. Perhaps a game of chess and a bottle of wine. 

His wife was a very intelligent and perceptive woman.

And so, on Thursdays, Jamie and Lord John met in the center of town before sunset and walked together to an inn or a public house. They would pass the meal talking of philosophy or literature or challenge each other with riddles in Latin. They played cards exactly once, but that had nearly ended in a disastrous argument, spared only by the liberal application of the whisky in Jamie’s flask and an agreement never to trust their entertainment to chance again. Sometimes they would take a room and enjoy a quiet game of chess, holing up for hours at a time until one of them would proclaim the hour very late and stagger home. 

On rare occasions, if the weather was bad or they had overindulged in drink, they’d stay the night. One of them would crawl under the bedclothes, the other collapsing in breeches and shirt atop the quilt. It spared them both awkwardness that way.

Though they rarely spoke of current events—they both knew what the future held after all—few topics of conversation were off limits. By unspoken agreement, these taboos included such details as John’s brief marriage to Claire and the deeper truth of John’s feelings for Jamie. Neither of them wanted to revisit the things John had said out of frustration or the things Jamie had done to John out of an ancient rage. They functioned much better if they let the past remain in the past and continued along as if nothing had ever been amiss. 

Except things _were_ amiss. For the third Thursday in a row, Jamie Fraser found himself strolling through the streets of Philadelphia with his oldest friend unable to maintain their customary superficial conversation before they arrived at the inn for supper. They therefore fell into long silences that were anything but companionable, at least for Jamie. He risked a glance at Grey, who walked at a comfortable pace, nodding respectfully to anyone who made eye contact with him. Jamie was so caught up in his own swirl of uneasiness that he couldn’t tell if John’s manner was genuinely patient and unperturbed or if he was wearing his society mask, that impenetrable shield of politeness that John fell back to when he was disturbed.

The inn’s taproom was unusually packed, a sea of raucous humanity that roiled and crashed around them. John gestured to a single empty table near the center of it all, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at Jamie.

Jamie grimaced before he could school his expression. He drummed his right hand against his thigh and lifted one shoulder in a weak shrug. “Aye…”

John’s eyes narrowed up at Jamie, his brow furrowing in concern for just an instant, searching his face. After a long moment, he laid a hand on Jamie’s arm and pulled them close enough to be heard above the din. “I’d rather avoid shouting at each other all evening. I’ll inquire as to a room and order our meal sent up, shall I?” Jamie's arm felt cold when John removed his hand from his sleeve.

Relief broke through Jamie’s growing uneasiness, and he gave Grey a grateful smile. “Aye, fine.” There were definite advantages to a bustling crowd. It was easy to get lost in, easy to hide. Easy to avoid small talk. But his mind couldn’t sort through any more chaos this evening. He felt as if the throng of people would suffocate him, and Jamie picked his way through them behind Lord John. He made incidental contact with as few people as could be managed through the press. He felt threatened, exposed. As if all the sins of his mind were laid out in bold type for the world to read at their leisure.

Jamie followed John up the narrow stair. With a great effort, he managed to keep his eyes on the scuffed boards of the steps. He wouldn’t permit his eyes to wander.

With a jolt, Jamie recognized the room. They’d been in it before but not for some weeks. Not since that bastard Beauchamp had barged into their private meal. The door shut behind Jamie and he heard in hazy, drunken memory the sound of John’s back crashing against that door. The wet smack of their lips as John pushed Jamie away, declaring him thoroughly gone with drink. They’d never spoken of that night again. John probably assumed that Jamie didn’t remember. And while the particulars were quite fuzzy, just out of reach, he recalled the ugly green demon clawing at his mind, tormenting Jamie with the thought of John in the arms of another man. He recalled that hurtful things were said. And he recalled that John had put him to bed to sleep off the hellacious mixture of whatever spirits he’d imbibed to great excess that night. 

John crossed to the window and opened it a crack to let in the autumn breeze. When he turned back around, his face was relaxed, one corner of his mouth quirked up in a little grin. His gentle eyes searched Jamie’s face from beneath slightly knitted brows. “Much better.” It was a statement, meant to spare Jamie’ embarrassment. 

“Aye, ‘tis.” So much had passed between them, Jamie reflected, that they simply never spoke of again. By and large, this wasn’t altogether a poor strategy. But there were things that had passed between them that Jamie had revisited in his mind more and more, wanted to discuss, but was frightened to broach the subject. 

Was Grey ashamed of that night, so many years ago at Helwater? Jamie was certainly ashamed of the terrible things he’d said to him. He was ashamed that he’d never apologized for those things. It hadn’t been Grey he’d seen in the barn that night. He’d been overcome by an ignoble terror, had felt the presence of Jack Randall all around him. He should have explained, should have begged forgiveness when Grey had returned the following evening to make amends. Shouldn’t have let his friend take the blame.

Jamie startled at the knock on the door and turned mechanically to open it and admit the proprietress with her tray laden with dinner and drinks and the modest chess set that they occasionally borrowed. He smiled and thanked her as she left again—or at least, he hoped he did.

He watched Grey remove his coat and hang it neatly on a hook. Did he regret it? Did he regret finding Jamie the next evening, begging Jamie’s pardon for what he’d said—justified though his words may have been, Jamie thought now—and showing him exactly what love between men could be? 

“Jamie?” John’s voice was soft and his warm hand on Jamie’s wrist shattered his reverie. “Won’t you sit down?”

Jamie took a long breath through his nose and fixed his friend with what he hoped was a kind and thoroughly present smile and took a seat at the small table.

Grey did most of the talking through dinner. Jamie watched him with rapt attention, though the actual words he said made little impression on his distracted mind. He was too focused on the way John’s shoulders relaxed as he spoke. It made Jamie smile to see his friend at ease, to see the tension gone out of him, the society mask laid aside. John truly had a beautifully expressive face when his guards were down. Jamie could track every emotion as it flitted across his eyes, which sparkled as he recounted something amusing their Willie had done as a boy.

"And that's when I recognized the man getting buggered as the Archbishop of Canterbury."

"Hmm?" Jamie said, startled. Christ, how long had he been distracted? "What?"

John cleared their empty dishes and poured them each a new glass of wine. "You've not heard a thing I've said, have you?"

"Did you say the Archbishop of Canterbury?"

"To get your attention," John said. He reached across the table and laid his hand over Jamie's. The stroke of his thumb sent jolts of excitement through Jamie's arm. "Are you unwell? I haven't seen you this disengaged in… well, I cannot recall that I ever have."

For a moment Jamie only blinked at John, then shook his head and gave his friend a brave smile. "Nay, dinna fash. My mind is wandering, that's all. I'm sorry. Please, go on." Guilt surged through him, twisted his guts into uncomfortable knots. Guilt for his rudeness. Guilt for Claire's sake and for the sin of infidelity in his mind. The urge to touch John, to feel his mouth on his, his warm flesh under his hands… it made his bones ache under the strain of longing.

John eyed him with open skepticism. "Alright. But if you'd like to discuss it, perhaps share the burden, you know that I am glad to listen." His grip tightened on Jamie's hand for an instant and then loosened. But he didn't let go, didn't stop that unassuming caress that simply said _I'm here._

With an intense regret, Jamie pulled his hand away, laying out the borrowed chess board. He'd almost told John to take his hand off of him. But that would have brought to mind the first time they'd touched like this. The dark, dank governor's quarters of Ardsmuir prison. When the ghost of Jack Randall had been all he could see. 

No, Jamie didn't wish to remind John of that. Yet another unfair and regrettable outburst that Jamie had never apologized for. 

"Thank ye, John. I do ken it." _Why now? Why did this fancy have to strike now?_

Jamie moved his chess pieces in automatic response to John, succeeding only in playing a reasonable defense.

 _Because it's not a passing fancy, clotheed._ But the most startling aspect of this revelation was that he'd felt this way for a long time. Years. Many years. But he'd dismissed it, assumed it was nothing but an infatuation for the man who'd shown him such tender affection that strange night in the past that they never spoke of. That it was only memory that stirred him on the rare occasion of his meeting John at the Ridge or in Wilmington, or on reading his letters that always began with _My Dearest Jamie_.

Perhaps it was the proximity now, the months of blending their family and making something unusual and wonderful in a way Jamie had never thought possible. Perhaps it was the constant nearness that left Jamie unable to think of anything but having John again. Of mapping out the changes time had made to his body.

It was too much, being so close, so thoroughly alone. Jamie watched John with half his attention—or far less—over the chessboard. He was beautiful. Striking even. The man who'd raised his son just as surely as Claire had raised his daughter. And for a similar reason. Because Willie was _Jamie's_ son. And now that John had seen Willie successfully into manhood, he was _their_ son.

Jamie was losing the game, he realized. Badly. But he couldn't keep the strategies in his head with John sitting across from him, nimble fingers plucking open the first couple of buttons of his waistcoat. John's eyes were narrowed at the carnage on the board, apparently completely unaware of the effect his simple, casual act had on his opponent. 

Indecent, that's what it was. Indecent that a man of Lord John's station should make himself so disheveled for the sake of a little comfort in a private engagement with an intimate friend who he had once bedded. More indecent still, Jamie furiously told himself, was the thought that a well-placed tug would send the rest of those waistcoat buttons flying.

_Oh. Jesus._

Jamie wanted to shift in his seat, to give his hardening cock more room in his breeches. Why the devil had he not worn his kilt? But he forced himself not to squirm. The discomfort of a seam jabbing against his own shameful indecency was penance for the same.

Even more surprising than the realization that his feelings for John were not new was the realization that it did not diminish his love for Claire. He examined both as John claimed his second bishop. 

"You're letting me win, sir," John said. "And not very tactfully this time."

"Nay, John, I wouldna do that."

Held side by side in his heart and his mind, Jamie's love for Claire had continued on it's course of growing deeper and more solid. But that didn't make sense. How could he feel so madly in love with his wife, and yet so desperate for John? It wasn't lust—though Jamie did feel that—for Claire and for John both. It was a different kind of love, what he felt for John, made of different stuff than the passion that had kindled Jamie’s romance with his wife. Different, aye. But no less and no more. If Jamie's love for Claire was fire, something visible that burned and consumed and warmed and fed him… for John it was steam. More subtle, harder to see and identify. No less valuable. Slower to scald the flesh, but the burn was just as sure.

Jamie was burning now.

The core of the sin of infidelity was that it led a man to break his vow to his wife, that it would erode the love between them, and therefore make him disinclined to care for her and protect her. That she would lose value in his heart. But what if his heart _was_ big enough for both? A man could love all his children with the same intensity after all. Was this really so different?

The tempest inside of Jamie reached its limit. If he didn't release the pressure, it would kill him. Tears burnt his eyes. He needed to either weep with the rage and despair of it, smash something most spectacularly, or toss Lord John onto that bed and take him apart piece by glorious piece.

John stared at Jamie, mouth ajar, eyes wide with concern. "Alright, this has gone on long enough. I refuse to permit you to go home to Claire in such a state of obvious torment. You will tell me now: what the hell is wrong?"

Jamie looked down at the board. How long had John been chasing his king with a single pawn? Just claiming check and check again? The sight of it infuriated him and he tossed the board, sending the pieces scattering to the four corners of the room.

John shot to his feet, the concern impatient now, his stance wary. "James Fraser, I don't know what the devil has disturbed you to such an extent but I would appreciate it if you got a bloody grip on yourself. Whatever it is, just tell me. I can't help if you don't tell me!"

There was something not precisely like fear in the way Grey held himself, and why shouldn't there be? Fraser had threatened him enough over the years, thrown enough punches, landed far too many. He had come close to killing Grey when they'd crossed blades months earlier, when Jamie had told him everything. And before that, when Jamie had returned to find him married to Claire, both of them staring at Jamie like he was a ghost. _We were both fucking you_. Jamie regretted that beating most particularly. It wasn't offense or disgust that had driven him to it, rather something frightening in himself that he couldn't name. 

It was _this_. Whatever _this_ was. And it was intense now. And consuming. And he could not stand it any longer.

John's hands were firm against his shoulders, holding Jamie at arm's length. "Jamie—"

Fraser realized with a start that he'd rounded the table and crowded John back toward the wall by the bed. "I canna do it, John," he said, voice unsteady, desperate.

"Can't do what? You can tell me." John swallowed hard but he was steady, if alert for danger.

"I canna keep going on like this, as if…" Christ, what were the right words? His eyes burnt again and his vision swam, John's handsome face going blurry. He worked his mouth, tried to force the words out, whatever they were, but nothing came of it. He was growing even more agitated, furious with himself for not being able to find the words to explain, in any language. Not French, nor English, nor German, not even the Gaelic was of any use to him.

Jamie laid his hands, surprisingly steady for their errand, on John's waist. Pulling them closer together, he bent and claimed John's mouth with his. He tasted of earthy sweet wine and the apples they'd eaten after supper. Warm lips, wet and pliant after the initial shock, permissive but not reciprocating. The only language with which Jamie could think of to tell John what he felt, what he needed, was that of the body. It wasn't like the last time they were in this particular room in this particular inn. Jamie had kissed John then too. That had been drunken, mad jealousy. This was desperation to be understood.

Those firm hands on Jamie's shoulders pushed, insistent but not cruel, moving him away. "Jamie, stop." It might have been Jamie's imagination, but he thought his friend's voice wavered. Uncertain, angry, offended, he couldn't tell. "Would you kindly explain what the devil you're doing? In short sentences, if you please."

"I canna stand it." Jamie's hands had begun to shake and he clenched and unclenched his fists in an effort to still them. It didn't work. "How do you feel about me, John?"

"You're one of my oldest and dearest friends," he answered automatically.

Jamie’s throat went tight. “Is that all?”

Grey gave him a level look. “Jamie… That’s not fair.”

“Please. I willna yell nor beat ye. I swear it. Do ye still—” Jamie forced his posture to relax, his hands to open at his sides. Every muscle felt tight, like he would fly apart into a million pieces. “Do ye still _want_ me?”

John closed his eyes and took a deep breath, looking resigned to some doom. “My love for you is so far into my bones that I cannot tell where it ends and I begin.” He opened his eyes then, blinked up at Jamie. “What are you getting at?” He spoke very slowly.

“I canna do it anymore. I want ye so badly it hurts. And I canna keep going along as if I don’t.” Jamie shook his head, begging the words to come to him. “And I canna explain it. I ken how it sounds. Everytime I’m with ye, I think about that night at Helwater. Sometimes it feels like a dream, something that didn’t happen, that I’ve invented it altogether. Because we never spoke of it again. Do ye regret it? Is that why?”

John appeared calmer now, less fearful. “You know why. And of course I don’t regret it. Sharing that with you… it was the greatest risk I’ve ever taken in my life and also the greatest reward.” He stepped closed to Jamie again, cupped his cheek with one hand. “But Jamie, please don’t say things like this unless you truly mean it. It hurts too much to dwell on what I know I can never have.”

“I mean it,” Jamie replied and crashed into John again, driving him back against the wall, pinning him there with the entirety of his own body. The initial shock was shorter than it had been a moment before, and then John yielded. His body relaxed under him, let Jamie slip his tongue between his lips. 

It was like the catching of dry kindling, all it took was a spark and everything ignited between them. John pushed against Jamie, shoving him backward until the back of his legs bumped against the bed. An awkward scrabbling at clothing— _dear God, so many layers_. Jamie _really_ should have worn his kilt. Seams creaked, fabric flapped, a mad kicking of their boots. They paid no heed to where their shirts and breeches and waistcoats landed, so long as they were _off_. 

That first, magical connection of hot flesh against hot flesh was breathtaking, missing pieces coming together at long last. They spoke no words, but volumes passed between them. When they finally fell onto the bed, all tangled up in naked mess, Jamie could have wept from the relief of John’s solid weight astride him. 

John’s hand on Jamie’s cock was deliciously warm and slick with an oil he’d palmed from some pocket or another. Then John lowered himself onto Jamie, taking him in carefully if not precisely slow. The inside of John was a blazing inferno, tight, perfect, heaven, _oh God, yes, finally—more_. John’s face was a symphony of glorious rapture as he settled himself. He let out a hum that might have been discomfort, but a shiver of pleasure passed over him, gooseflesh and sweat erupting over his arms and legs.

He should say something, Jamie thought. Sweet nothings or poetry. John deserved as much. But their bodies were more eloquent than pretty words could ever be. Jamie’s hands were greedy and rough, mapping out every inch of John that he could reach as John rode him hard, desperate, frantic— _more, harder, faster, never stop, not ever_. Their heavy, panting breaths and the creak of the bedstead filled the little room. Sighs, low groans, the breathy sounds of passionate connection. Jamie wrapped his hand around John’s hard prick, let him thrust into it.

John spilled onto Jamie’s bare chest and stomach with a whimper, trembling and wordless. And too soon a white hot wave of ecstasy rolled through Jamie, poured out of him, and filled John. Jamie dragged him down and devoured his mouth, John’s sticky seed still warm between them, some of his own dribbling down his prick as he slipped out of John.

Kissing John let everything come back into focus at last, leaving Jamie’s mind clearer than it had been, despite the drowsiness seeping into his sated bones. He wrapped his arms tight around John and held him close.

John melted on top of him, his head on Jamie’s chest, both of them gasping for breath. “Jamie,” he whispered, tentative and unsure. Testing the waters. “Should we talk about this?”

No. That was a terrible idea. Talking led to thinking and thinking would lead to feelings which were far less rational. “In the morning, aye?”

There was a long pause. Then Grey answered, “Alright then.” And they fell asleep, still tangled up, still a mess, and still naked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fills my Bad Things Happen bingo square: **Slammed into a Wall**

They didn’t talk about it in the morning, what had passed between them the night before. Stupidly, selfishly, Grey was glad of that. Because if they had talked about it, Jamie would have come to his senses and they would have fought. For the sake of the son they shared, he and Jamie couldn't be driven apart again. No, better to let that incredible night of passion fade into the growing annals of their unspoken history.

Saturday morning Grey had awoken drenched in sweat, his skin tingling with the fading memory of an erotic dream, prick urgently hard and demanding attention. It hadn't been a particularly visual dream, but as he took himself in hand, he held onto the phantom sense of fucking Jamie Fraser gently into a featherbed. As he came, he felt some residual tenderness in his arse from riding Jamie two nights prior, a sharp pain that made him hiss. Normally Grey would have found the sensation disagreeable, even distressing. But it was different with Jamie. Everything was different with Jamie. 

All logic and reason seemed irrelevant whenever Jamie Fraser was concerned. No one infuriated him like Jamie. No one could break his heart like Jamie. No one could have made Grey believe in time travel and the inevitable future but Jamie. No one could have convinced John to walk away from his family, from his duty and honor but Jamie. There was no one that John Grey loved as deeply and as fiercely as he loved Jamie Fraser. 

As seemed the consequence of a large family, found and hodgepodge though it was, there was always something to engage Grey's attention. He found he quite liked spending time in the company of Jamie's grandchildren. The little girls Félicité and Joan accepted him immediately, prattling on about anything and everything with a great deal of enthusiasm. His patience with them may have contributed to the softening of Mrs. Murray’s demeanor toward him. Jamie's sister was no lover at all of the English in general or Grey and his brother in particular. 

Perhaps it was a blessing that Grey and Jamie never had an opportunity to be alone for more than a few seconds at time, much less discuss Thursday night. Claire was often away, calling on patients or running errands, always busy. But they had seen each other, exchanged some pleasantries, the occasional joke, and her demeanor toward Grey was entirely unchanged. Surely Jamie would have told her. Perhaps in her time it was perfectly acceptable for a married man to occasionally take a lover. Or perhaps Jamie, like so many men of _this_ time, believed that a man’s business was his own and had elected not to tell her.

Either way, nothing seemed changed, except that it was increasingly difficult to keep his hands to himself in Jamie’s company. But Grey had done this dance before, to an extent, had lived in utter secrecy and absolute discretion his entire adult life. And he’d mostly managed to keep his wits about him in Jamie’s presence on many occasions. Being madly in love with the man wasn’t a new development after all.

Grey met Jamie in the center of town on the following Thursday. He paid close attention to his friend’s posture, his mood, taking everything in. But it was perfectly, infuriatingly blank, damn him. Well then, if they weren’t going to talk about it, they weren’t going to talk about it.

As luck would have it, the taproom of the inn they selected was not very crowded, and Jamie seemed much more relaxed this evening than the week prior. Perfect. They could get a nice, public table, enjoy a decent meal, some friendly conversation decidedly _not_ of a romantic or sexual nature, a few drinks, and part ways as friends. That was just the medicine.

To Grey’s utter alarm, Jamie broke away from him and strode directly to the proprietor, reserved a room and ordered dinner and wine to be sent up behind them. 

_Oh Christ._ Maybe they _were_ going to talk about it. _Shit_.

The room was chilly and Grey needed something to occupy his attention, so he knelt to build up a fire in the hearth. Fraser spoke of lighthearted things, while John drew out the task as long as possible. 

“Ye recall that Fergus was a pickpocket when I found him?” Jamie asked.

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Grey answered. “Why? Are you concerned he’s returned to a life of crime? Beyond sedition and treason, I mean.”

“Weel,” Jamie said, laughter in his voice. “Aren’t we all?”

“Touche.”

“Nay, it isna like that. But he taught Germain the trade. The lad swears he’s finished wi’ it, but keep an eye on him if ye’re out together, will ye?” 

A knock at the door heralded their meal. The door opened behind Grey, still kneeling and poking at the fire. _This would be it, then,_ Grey thought. He heard Jamie set down a tray on the table but couldn’t make himself stand.

Jamie lowered himself to his knees next to him, so damn close that Grey could smell the ink from Fergus’ printing press. “John…” he began.

“Jamie, listen, I know that wh—” Grey’s words died on Jamie’s lips. He dropped the poker and fisted his hands into the lapels of Jamie’s coat. He tasted like home and whatever abomination passed for tea in the colonies these days and Grey inhaled the scent of him, drank it all in and locked it away. 

With sincere regret and firm hands, he pushed Jamie back, eyes still closed because he couldn’t bear to see the regret and shame on his friend’s face. “Jamie, this isn’t something you need to do to keep my friendship. What we shared last week was special and miraculous and I will treasure the memory of it always. But please. I am _begging you_ , James Fraser. Please don’t string me along with something you do not truly want. It’s cruel to the both of us.”

“John, will ye look at me?” Jamie’s big hand was warm on Grey’s chin. Grey opened his eyes and stared directly into Jamie’s. His friend was smiling. It was warm and sincere and entirely devoid of regret, shame, and irony. “That’s better. I want this, do ye understand? No’ because I think I owe ye something, and no’ because I think ye expect it. You are verra precious to me, John. And I wish to ken ye and have ye in all the ways that I can.” The confident smile faltered and for the first time it appeared that Fraser had lost his resolve, and he pulled his hand away from John’s face. “But I understand, if ye dinna want me. Just tell me, and we’ll never speak of this again.”

“No, it’s not that,” Grey said, hasty before Jamie got the wrong impression. “I shall most assuredly want you until the day I die. But Jamie, you’re married.”

His smile turned wry. “Aye. And since we decided not to advertise my return from the dead by annulling _yer_ marriage, technically so are you. To the same woman.”

Grey scrubbed a hand over his face. “Dear God in Heaven. When you put it that way it sounds positively mad. Christ, how did we end up in this situation? And what the hell _is_ this situation?”

“Claire says ridiculous shenanigans follow ye like yer own personal raincloud of chaos. I dinna quite understand what precisely constitutes ‘a shenanigan’ but apparently they abound.”

Grey snorted. “And Claire? What about her? How does she feel about any of this?”

Jamie shook his head. “She doesna ken. Not yet.”

“Jamie…”

“I’m no’ lying to her, John. I havenae told her, if that’s what ye’re wondering. But I will,” Jamie added hastily. “I wanted to wait until I was sure. Until we were sure.”

Grey took a deep breath, trying to keep everything straight in his swirling, chaotic mind. “I need you to tell me _exactly_ what it is that you want.”

Jamie looked about the room as if making calculations and coming to some complex conclusion. “In the immediate future, I’d verra much like to make love to ye on this hearth rug.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, Jamie,” John gasped and surged forward to kiss him. Right, wrong, indifferent, it didn’t matter. Jamie _wanted him_. The rest was just inconvenient details.

True to his word, Jamie had made tender love to him on the hearth rug, whispering his name as he spilled deep inside him. _Oh God, John._

"What does it make us, do you suppose," Grey asked, "that we're married to the same woman?" 

They'd moved to the little table afterward, stumbling naked through the blissful, postcoital fog of delight, bellies rumbling. The meal was a simple affair, roast chicken and an assortment of root vegetables. Jamie poured their wine as he considered Grey's question. "Technically, now? Bigamists, I think."

"Christ," Grey said, laughing. "I suppose you're right." He chewed a forkful of carrot and onion, salty with a hint of rosemary. "I've known plenty of unfaithful husbands, but never an actual bigamist. At least, not any that were open about the fact." The white wine was dry and carried the subtle tang of tart fruit. 

"I have," Jamie replied, matter-of-fact. Grey blinked at him across the table. "Three of my tenants, in fact. Ye recall Miss Weymss? Brianna's maid?"

"I believe so. Waif of a girl, yes?"

"Aye, that's her. She went and fell in love with the Beardsley lads. _Both_ of them. She handfast one with me as witness, then hurriedt off to Roger Mac so he could wed her to the other. In a hasty Presbyterian ceremony nay less." Jamie shook his head in dismay. Grey wasn't sure if it was the bigamy or the Protestant elopement that bothered Jamie more, and he was too afraid to ask. 

* * *

They parted ways in the morning, Jamie kissing Grey furiously before they opened the door to leave the surreal confines of their little refuge. They'd tumbled into bed after a lazy supper, and Jamie had taken him again, this time beneath the shelter of crisp linen. It didn't seem to matter anymore that Grey didn't normally like to be penetrated in that way. There was nothing that he wouldn’t give to Jamie, and that included his own body.

It only took one chance conversation with Claire to spoil it. A scant handful of sentences, and Grey's joy that Jamie— _finally_ —wanted him soured entirely to guilt. It was the following Sunday evening, while Grey and Willie's conversation with Fergus and Ian reached a natural lull. Claire gave John's arm an affectionate squeeze, smiling. "I'm so glad that we're all together. I can't recall the last time I saw Jamie so happy and content. All we're missing now is Bree and her family, and our little clan would be complete."

_Oh, Christ. He hasn't told her._ Claire was the most painfully direct person Grey had ever known and if Jamie had told her… well, he wasn't sure what the conversation would have been but it wouldn't have been that. He locked away the urge to blurt it and instead returned her warm smile. "I am quite content myself."

It wasn't a _lie_. But it wasn't the entire truth either. Grey had lived his entire life in the shadow of half truths. Never with this woman, though. There had always been honesty between them. Sometimes brutal honesty. She was Grey's wife by only a technicality of the law. This was Jamie's business to share with her. Grey kept his thoughts tucked away safely, wrapping the cloak of etiquette tight around himself like a protective mantle. But he couldn't shake the nauseating sensation of guilty snakes writhing in his guts.

An unexpected visit from his niece Dottie provided Grey a convenient excuse to be away from the Frasers’ usual gathering places. Away from Claire’s gut-wrenchingly kind smiles and Jamie’s tempting, heartbreakingly beautiful face. Grey couldn’t look at him now without imagining his expression of rapt ecstasy and just the memory of it stirred him nearly to the point of indecency. 

Wednesday, Dottie and her husband joined the family for dinner. Claire and Dr. Hunter got along famously, swapping surgical war stories that were probably quite inappropriate for mixed company, let alone the dinner table. Grey, seated next to Jamie near the head of the table found himself quite unable to avoid fidgeting. Willie gave him a knowing smirk across the table, quite likely assuming his discomfort was a result of the enthusiastic discussion of leeches, maggots, and other methods of wound debridement at the opposite end of the table. The truth was that the table was quite crowded and Jamie was so close to John that their legs had been in constant contact since they sat down. 

Jamie put a hand on Grey’s knee under the table, probably appearing to anyone who noticed—not that anyone noticed _them_ while the doctors carried on—like a reassuring pat on the knee. The normal kind of platonic, physical intimacy strictly between friends and nothing more. But no one could have realized that Jamie’s fingers were angled toward Grey’s prick, sliding just a few inches up his thigh.

Grey's heart skipped several beats, then started up again in double time. He tried to discreetly tug at his breeches, needing more room for his hardening cock. When Jamie’s grip tightened, just a brief squeeze before releasing his thigh altogether, Grey gallantly fought the desperate urge to yank Jamie from his chair. To haul him up and steal away with him, make a great scene in front of Claire and both of their families. To drag him from the dinner table to the nearest room with a modicum of privacy, bend Jamie over literally any horizontal surface, and stake his claim. To fuck Jamie Fraser hard until he begged. Until he understood with his entire body that he belonged to _Grey_. His. _Mine,_ Grey would say. _You are mine and no one else’s ever again._ And Jamie would sob, _Yers, John. Only yers, please, harder. More. Make me feel it for a week so I dinna forget._ It didn’t matter that Grey had never once touched Jamie’s arse. He’d have it and Jamie would be ruined for anything else. For anyone else.

_Oh. God damn everything directly to hell._ John glanced down the table, clinging to his politeness. _She_ was still listening with rapt attention to Dr. Hunter’s account of an amputation. Naturally, _she_ had some terribly clever recommendation for cauterizing blood vessels during such a procedure. And Dr. Hunter proclaimed her to be a true genius, years ahead of her time.

Grey took a very long drink of his whisky to avoid letting out a derisive snort. If only he knew. Did Quakers believe in witches? Well, if they did, Dr. Hunter likely did not. And if _he_ did, he certainly wouldn’t countenance the _harming_ of said witch. 

He couldn’t eat anymore. His jaw was clenched too tightly to chew and the whisky filled him. It had been years since Grey had burned with such jealousy. He was disgusted with himself for it, but he just could not shake it. Two weeks in a row Jamie had chosen John over Claire and she still didn’t know. And if that earlier hand on Grey’s leg was anything to go by, Jamie would choose him again tomorrow.

John’s head was swimming with drink by the time he rose to take his leave with his little branch of the clan. 

“I’ll see ye tomorrow, John,” Jamie said, smiling. Grey would have given anything to kiss that damned smile off his face, right in front of Claire. But there were children present and he quite thought Jenny Murray not only willing to but capable of murdering Grey on the spot for such a stunt. 

“Good night, Jamie,” Grey said instead, forcing himself to enunciate. Claire gave John’s arm an affectionate squeeze in farewell. “Thank you, my dear, for extending your hospitality to my niece,” he said, hoping against hope that _my dear_ sounded genuine. For the first time since he’d begun to use that term of endearment with Claire, it was not genuine.

Willie, such a good lad, led them home and saw Grey safely to his bed.

* * *

The next day was Thursday. Grey embraced Dottie and shook Dr. Hunter's hand, and watched them shrink into the distance as they rode out of town shortly after sunrise. He would have sold his soul for coffee. The abundance of whisky and raging green jealousy had stolen his rest the previous night.

He'd been too aroused to sleep and too drunk to do anything about it. So he'd tossed and turned and huffed and groaned and played out wild scenarios in his head. He'd ask Jamie to leave Claire. Or Grey himself would tell Claire and she'd throw Jamie out. Eventually the angry huffing and spiteful muttering under his breath had given way to silent tears. Because it didn't matter. None of it fucking mattered. When it was all said and done, when Jamie had gotten this curious streak out of his system, he'd choose Claire. He would always choose Claire. And to hell with all of it, Jamie loved her so fiercely that Grey couldn't even hate him for it. 

Grey went about his Thursday in secret misery and settled himself into a rather spectacular melancholy. Lovesick. Ashamed of the infidelity. Guilt-ridden. He _liked_ Claire. Loved her in a way. But, oh, not like he loved Jamie. Desperate to touch Jamie, for Jamie to touch him. His skin crawled with the need of it, his clothes oppressive. Jamie was truly habit-forming and Grey was thoroughly in his thrall. 

He checked his pocket watch almost constantly, every time he heard it chime and twice in between. When he finally met Jamie, his mouth ran dry. He was dressed in his kilt, the long plaid swept over his shoulder and pinned with a simple brooch. Jamie greeted him with a broad grin that melted Grey's heart and a hand on his back that set him ablaze. 

They talked of their family as they walked. Willie and Ian were becoming fast friends, the former helping the latter practice speaking Greek in exchange for Ian teaching Willie some choice phrases in Gaelic.

"I struggled to teach Ian Greek," Jamie admitted. "The lad is brilliant enough but he doesna have much of an ear for some languages. But Willie found a way to make a game of it."

Grey smiled. "That's how I taught Willie German. He's a quick study but his head always seemed to be in the clouds. Got that from Geneva, I suspect."

"Oh, I'm sure of it. I'm verra serious. All the time."

Grey shot Jamie an incredulous look, noticed Jamie was as unconvinced of this statement as Grey was, and laughed. 

As before, they arranged for a room at the inn, ordered dinner to be sent up, and borrowed the proprietor's chess set for the sake of appearances. Grey had no intention of playing anything but Jamie Fraser's body like the finely tuned instrument it was. 

He deposited the chess set on the table as Jamie shut the door behind them.

_Finally._

Grey whirled around, grabbed a handful of Jamie's coat, and shoved him hard against the wall next to the door so hard the air went out of him in a whoosh. He kissed Jamie furiously, desperately, taking what he pleased, demanding more. 

"John, someone will—" 

"Shut up," he said. It was his command voice and he bloody well knew it. Jamie shuddered under him and Grey swallowed his lover's answering moan. Taking hold of Jamie's wrists, he shoved them up and back, pinning them to the wall. "Do not move."

Not waiting for a reply, Grey sank to his knees in front of Jamie and lifted his kilt to reveal muscular thighs and his hard prick.

"John…" Jamie hissed. 

Grey looked up at Jamie with narrowed eyes, decidedly not in the mood for a sudden case of demure. A week was too damn long. To see Jamie and not be able to touch him. To go about as if nothing had changed. "I want you in my mouth. Do you have any objections?"

"No, but—'

"Then be quiet and remember what I told you about your hands." He waited for Jamie to nod, then took his cock into his mouth. Silky smooth flesh, hard and warm and his for the taking, slid over his tongue. The tip touched the back of his throat and Grey shivered in delight. They hadn't done this since that long ago night at Helwater, but Jamie still tasted the same. Musky, masculine, smelling faintly now of the soap Claire made.

"Christ," Jamie breathed, the sound converting to a gasp when Grey dug his fingernails into the back of Jamie's thigh. A quick glance up confirmed that Jamie was still following his instructions. 

Barely, he realized with a smirk. Grey watched Jamie falling to pieces, his chest heaving, legs trembling under John's hands, cock twitching in his mouth. Jamie was close, he could tell.

A knock at the door made Jamie's eyes go wide and every muscle in his body tensed. Grey gave him one last swirl of his tongue, calmly pulled off, and stood, letting Jamie's kilt fall back into place. He angled a finger of silent warning at Jamie, and opened the door to accept the supper tray from the proprietress. "Thank you, madam," he said, smiling pleasantly while Jamie held his breath behind the door. 

Grey set the tray on the table, dipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and drew out his pocket watch and the little vial of oil he'd brought, leaving the former on the table and palming the latter. He turned back to Jamie, who bolted the door, his eyes fixed on John. Jamie was still hard, his cockstand creating an almost amusing tent shape in the flat front of his kilt. Grey might have laughed if he weren’t so desperately hard himself. Instead, he stalked across the narrow distance back to Jamie, gaze locked with his. “I want you, Jamie Fraser,” he said. His command voice was back. 

“Aye, I—” 

“No,” Grey interrupted. He grabbed a firm handful of Jamie’s arse, digging his fingers into the flesh through his kilt and yanking him close so his own hard prick jabbed into Jamie’s hip. “I. _Want_. You.” Grey drove Jamie back against the wall again. “I want to be inside you. I want to make you mine. I want to see you come undone on my prick.” He was so close to Jamie now that their lips almost brushed, his voice gone dark. “And whenever you look at me in front of other people, I want you to remember that _this_ —” Grey squeezed hard on Jamie’s arse again. Jamie winced. “This belongs to me. Do you understand?”

After a pause, Fraser nodded and licked his lips.

That was all Grey needed. He dove in, their mouths colliding in famished abandon. Jamie tore at Grey's clothes, tugging and shoving and tossing coat and waistcoat, shirt, breeches. Buckles jangled from what John estimated was at least three belts wrapped around Jamie, holding everything in place. They ripped and clawed at each other, seeking skin, connection, possession. Bare at last, Grey swatted Jamie’s backside, the slap loud in the quiet room. “Bed. Now.”

Jamie sucked in a sharp breath and nodded again before hastily complying. Christ, he was a vision. What seemed like miles of skin, richly golden in the low light of the dying fire, muscles that could have been sculpted by actual gods. Stiff prick, fierce eyes wide with lust. His own personal—no, not Adonis. _Ares._ Beautiful, breathtakingly so, without a doubt. But under the exquisite wrappings, power incarnate. A god of war made flesh, Grey’s for the taking. His enemy once. Friend eventually. Ally after that. Lover now. 

“Dear God in Heaven,” Grey whispered, kneeling on the bed over Jamie. He skimmed his hands over all the firm places he could touch. Chest, stomach, hips, thighs. “Oh, I am going to enjoy this.” Nudging Jamie’s legs apart and settling between them, their eyes met and the emotion that passed between them was deliciously intimate. A shiver skittered down Grey’s spine, gooseflesh prickling over his arms. He could see the nervousness behind Jamie’s eyes, felt the tension in his body. But trust too. And the sort of desire that demands immediate action. “And so are you, my love.”

Uncorking the vial and drizzling a bit onto his fingers, Grey offered it for Jamie to smell. “Plain safflower with just a drop of rosehips,” he said. Claire had mentioned Jamie’s aversion to lavender. It had been a casual statement one afternoon, that she avoids using lavender around Jamie.

Christ, if only she’d realized what John would use that information for.

Jamie took a whiff of the oil, barely any fragrance to it at all, and relaxed by degrees. “I trust ye, John. Oh God, please I need ye now, I canna wait any longer.” He reached for his cockstand, still leaking and unsatisfied from their previous interruption. Grey gently moved it away, brought Jamie’s hand to his chest instead. 

“Touch me,” John said. “But not yourself. I’ll take care of you.” He stroked one slick finger up the cleft of Jamie’s arse and slid it inside. Jamie tensed, and Grey leaned down to stroke his stag red hair away from his face with his free hand. “Easy, my love,” he whispered, petting Jamie’s head in soothing caresses. “Relax and let it feel good. I always take good care of what is mine.”

Jamie’s grip was a vise on Grey’s shoulder, but he was breathing. Those gloriously strong muscled slackened as John worked his finger inside him with slow, exploratory motions, looking for all the things that might make Jamie come apart. A second finger, easily accepted, had Jamie writhing and moaning. 

“Oh, God, John, please,” Jamie whined. “Please, I’m going to burst.”

“Wait till you’re on my cock and you can burst all you want,” Grey answered. He felt Jamie go pliant, submitting with his entire body. Pulling his fingers free, he applied a generous amount of oil to his prick. Jamie went willingly when John lifted his hips. And when Grey pushed slowly in, his lover threw his head back on the pillow gasping and clamping his lips shut to stifle a wanton groan. 

No words. There were no words to describe the feeling of having Jamie Fraser mad with pleasure and split open on Grey’s prick. If he could have stopped time and stayed here forever, he would have. The heavens could collapse directly on them. Perhaps they had. He lifted one of Jamie’s legs to rest on his shoulder, kissed his shin, scraped his teeth over his calf. 

Grey thrust in and out, slowly at first, raising an eyebrow at Jamie. _Do you like this?_

“More,” Jamie panted. “More, oh God. Show me, please. Show me that I’m yours.”

Words failed him, so Grey gave up on them. He pounded into Jamie, the bed frame creaking and protesting the abuse. But what words could never adequately convey, their bodies understood intuitively. _Mine_ , John's said. _Yours_ , Jamie's answered. Grey wrapped his hand around Jamie's prick, tugging and stroking.

" _Shh_ ," Grey hissed when Jamie opened his mouth to cry out. 

Jamie pressed his lips together in a firm line, clearly struggling to keep his voice down. He came, his seed warm and thick over Grey's hand, spattering up Jamie’s stomach and chest.

And that was all it took to send Grey over the edge. He sank his teeth into Jamie’s calf, spilling himself as deep inside him as he could. Jamie made some indefinable noise, something like exhausted satiety as Grey pulled out. John collapsed onto his back, guiding Jamie to lay his head on his chest. Grey wrapped his arms around Jamie, held him close, and pressed his lips to his scalp, breathing in deep the smell of his hair. “My God, how I love you,” he whispered. He hadn’t meant to say it, but he found that he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer. He had to breathe life into this thing growing between them, whatever it was. It didn’t matter though, Grey knew that. Because in the morning, Jamie would go back to his wife, and John would be left to carry the burden of their betrayal for another week.

There was a long pause, long enough that Grey thought perhaps Jamie hadn’t heard him. But then Jamie lifted his head to meet his gaze. Jamie’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “And I you. Ye’re verra precious to me, _mo leannan_.”

* * *

They’d eaten their supper naked, lounging close together in the bed. They fed each other bits of this and that, smiling and licking up spills and smears from the other’s lips or chin. They didn’t speak much, and when they did it was in hushed tones, blending into the crackle of the fire Jamie had built up in the hearth. Their manner was effortlessly intimate, indulging in every little urge to touch. But there was a shadow about the mood. The air felt heavy between them, around them, some very large issue taking up all the space and leaving them trapped in this shelter of rumpled sheets and spilled seed. 

John returned to the bed after setting the decimated dinner tray on the table. Jamie wrapped his arms around him, held him close. “I havenae told Claire yet,” Jamie confessed. 

John let out a long sigh through his nose, tickling over the hairs on Jamie’s chest. “I rather thought not.”

“I will,” Jamie hastened to add, the shame of his cowardice burning in his throat. “I just… I dinna ken how.”

“I can’t tell you that. I don’t know either. I’ve never been in this situation before.” John shook his head, still resting on Jamie’s shoulder. “I’ve kept secret every lover I’ve ever had. But never from his wife. Nor mine, for that matter. I’ve never taken a married man to my bed before, and I remained faithful to Isobel, while she was alive.”

Guilt curdled Jamie’s wame, left him feeling pathetic and small. He didn’t delude himself for a moment that he was perfect, that he’d not committed the occasional sin. Sometimes with alarming frequency as he traded a lesser sin for the sake of avoiding a graver one. But this… Of course Jamie knew that it was far from uncommon for a wedded man to be unfaithful to his wife. To give into temptation with a mistress—or several—or to make a habit of going with whores. But the desire to stray from Claire had never crossed Jamie’s mind. “I ken it doesna make sense.”

“What doesn’t?” John’s finger idly stroked Jamie’s chest.

“That I can feel what I feel for you and love Claire nay less for it. There’s nothing missing from my marriage. And this between us, it’s whole as well.” Jamie stared at the ceiling, embarrassed to meet John’s eyes.

“Well…” John began. He sighed again, then propped himself up on an elbow. “Jamie, I… Christ. I can’t stand hiding this from Claire. She has a right to know.”

That cowardice twisted in Jamie’s guts again. Fear of losing Claire or John. Or both. “I canna choose between ye, John.” 

Grey gave him the saddest smile Jamie had ever seen. “Yes, you can. You will choose Claire. You will always choose Claire.” Jamie opened his mouth to argue but John stopped him with a gesture. “Yes, you will. I never fooled myself into thinking I could compete with her for your heart. I don’t want to. And I do not resent you for that. She’s your great love.” John took Jamie’s hand and interlaced their fingers. “And you are mine.” He kissed the back of Jamie’s hand. “And because you are my great love, it may be for the best if I returned to Virginia.”

Jamie squeezed John’s hand tight, panic and regret overtaking him. “Nay, ye canna leave. I need ye here wi' me. Ye're safer if we're together. Willie is safer. And you and I… we're better this way."

That smile grew impossibly sadder and John shook his head. "No, we're not. The past three weeks have been the most passionate love affair of my life and I shall grieve the loss of it for the rest of my days. I don't mind hiding our love from the world, that's just survival. But I cannot stand hiding it from Claire. I can't go on being your dirty little secret. I love you without shame. And perhaps I'm selfish for it, but I don't want to be with a man—even you—who is ashamed to be with me."

"Nay, John, it isna that." Jamie grappled for the words, fear and sadness making it hard to think. "I dinna… she willna understand that I can love ye both." A very old shame that had nothing whatever to do with John cast its inky black shadow over Jamie's mind. "And when I tell her she's wed to a… a sodomite. Jesus."

“Well. It wouldn’t be the first time.” John chewed on his lower lip for a moment, his gaze on Jamie a tangible thing. “I cannot begin to guess how she will react when you tell her. I can only hope it will be easier after I’ve left, when it’s something that was—” His voice broke and he paused, swallowing hard. “Something that was in the past.”

The mere thought of seeing John walk away, to see him leave and know that they would never see each other again, froze Jamie’s heart. He took John’s face in both of his hands and kissed him hard. “No,” Jamie said. “I dinna want ye to leave. And ye’re right. I may have room enough in my heart for the both of you but there isna room between the three of us for a secret like this. I am sorry, John. It isna you I’m ashamed of. Tis the sin, do ye see?”

John laid back on the pillow with a sigh. "You don't have to answer this but since you bring up sodomy… earlier, when I used my mouth on you. Has Claire ever done that to you?"

Jamie settled himself on his side, not sure where this was going. "Well. Aye."

“Well then, all other things being equal, is it your marriage, do you think, or her sex that makes it less of a sin with Claire than it is with me? Because it cannot produce children with her either.”

The man did make a good point, that was the essence of it. To indulge in the pleasures of the flesh for no other reason than to slake one's lust. "I… well, I dinna ken. I swore an oath before God to love her and keep her."

"Hmm. And does such an oath require a priest, do you reckon?"

"Well," Jamie said, taking John's hand between the two of his, just to have a way to touch him. "In times of need, any man may serve in that capacity."

John pressed his lips to Jamie’s fingers. "I have a need." His voice was low, something about it irresistibly seductive, though Jamie didn’t think it was intentionally so. "Would you swear such an oath to me?"

A slow grin spread across Jamie's face. "Why, John Grey. Did ye just ask me to marry ye?"

"Not exactly. But if that's what you'd like to call it. Yes." His eyes were serious as he sucked one of Jamie's fingers into his mouth and he swirled his tongue around it. It was the same thing he'd done to Jamie's cock earlier and it was damned exciting. "Honesty is what I want. I would never ask you to leave Claire, though God knows the thought has occurred to me. But I want you to make the choices that you believe are right. I fell in love with you because of your goodness and your honor. I want you to swear to me that you will remain the good, honorable man I know you to be.”

Jamie considered this. John’s request was perfectly reasonable, but how to say what he felt without breaking his vows to Claire? John deserved poetry. He deserved pretty words and grand gestures. But all he was asking for was Jamie to remain true to himself in the hope that in so doing would make room in his life for John. He turned John’s hand over in his and kissed his palm. “I swear on the cross of my Lord Jesus and by the iron which I…” He glanced toward the pile of clothes and weapons on the floor and chuckled. “And by the iron which we left in my sword belt and is near yon chair… that I give ye my honesty, and my pledge of honor. If ever again my hand is raised against ye in anger, or should I act the dishonorable coward, I ask that this holy iron may pierce my heart.”

John's hand was warm on Jamie's cheek, his smile satisfied and full of love. "Perfect. Thank you. And I swear that shall always respect the direction that takes you." When he kissed Jamie, soft and slow, it was the taste of wine and and the musky scent of sweat and sex and the beginning and the end. John pushed Jamie onto his back and rolled on top of him, his cock, growing hard again, slid against Jamie's inner thigh. "May I have you again? Slowly this time?"

Jamie's own cock gave an interested twitch. "Oh God, aye."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please take a moment to review the fic tags before reading this chapter. It's getting very messy now.
> 
> This chapter includes brief depictions of domestic violence that some readers may find triggering. [The Domestic Violence Hotline](https://www.thehotline.org) has online resources an a hotline for those in the US.
> 
> This chapter also includes references to rape from the canon content. [RAINN](https://www.rainn.org) has excellent online resources and a hotline for those in the US.

John made love to Jamie, slowly, deliberately. Jamie hadn't expected to enjoy it as much as he did. But John was an attentive lover, communicative. They had never directly discussed the finer details of Jamie's more horrific past, but there was something in the way John cared for him. Like he knew, somehow, much more than Jamie had shared.

There was no comparison to how it was with Claire. Jamie's love for her and his love for John were distinct, neither greater nor lesser. Was he selfish for that? He didn't choose to love John, only to act on it. But it was the same with Claire, wasn't it? There hadn't been much choice about that either. One may choose who they wed and who they bed, but falling in love was quite beyond one's control.

Jamie had parted ways with John Friday morning with every intention of going directly to Claire and having a perfectly rational conversation. He found her puttering about with her herbs and medicines, singing under her breath. 

_“Love me tender, love me dear. Tell me you are mine…”_

She beamed at Jamie when he kissed her. "Well, good morning," she said. "Did you have breakfast?"

Christ, she was unfathomably beautiful. The earthy green smell of the plants she was preparing filled the little room of their cabin, her hair pulled back but uncovered. The way her graceful hands found their way under his coat. It made him weak, his resolve evaporating, replaced entirely with the immediate need to feel her all around him. "Nay, _mo nighean donn_ , I havenae." Jamie dug his fingers into her arse and she yelped, but went on grinning up at him. "An' I'm famished." He pushed her back toward their bed, and she went willingly, her hand going up his kilt and closing around his cock. "I wish to devour ye, Sassenach. God, how I need ye."

"Do you really miss me so much, even when you're only gone for one night?" Claire asked. She rested her head against Jamie's chest. He held her, nose buried in her hair, breathing her in. 

_Lord, how I love this woman_. It was an eternal thing, bright as the sun and just as steady. "I do," Jamie said, and found it wasn't a lie. Even while he found pleasure in John's body, it was difficult not to think of her, to imagine the three of them together. His two loves, caring for them both, worshiping them both. The uneasiness, the jealousy, all the ugly things that had existed between the three of them at some point or another totally gone, driven away by the ferocity with which Jamie loved them both. 

Sickly, green fear and dread writhed in Jamie’s belly, stole his breath. Claire stood from the bed and straightened her skirts back into place, and Jamie snatched her wrist before she could leave his side. He’d lose his nerve again if he didn’t start acting now. “Sassenach… will ye let me come wi’ ye when ye go foraging this afternoon? I ken Willie was to accompany ye, but I’ll speak wi’ him. If ye dinna mind.”

Claire's eyes narrowed, but she smiled and nodded. "Of course."

* * *

Willie had been understanding when Jamie asked him not to go with Claire, and Marsali had insisted that he join the rest of the family for supper. John was already planning to join them; he’d wanted to give Jamie the space he needed to talk to Claire. He’d offered to be there for Jamie, but ultimately left it up to him, said he would gladly do whatever Jamie thought was best. It wouldn’t have been fair to John—or to Claire—for this to be any more painful than it needed to be. No, Jamie had to do this alone.

Jamie spent the next several hours wretched with his guilt and fear and despair. It twisted inside him, burning and freezing his blood at intervals. He’d not felt anything this intensely horrible since the eve of Culloden, when Jamie had taken Claire to the standing stones and sent her back through with wee Brianna in her belly.

 _Please Dear Lord,_ Jamie prayed fiercely. _Please let us walk home together tonight. Let me make this right._

They strolled out of town, talking of their children and grandchildren, their hopes and dreams for Brianna and Roger, Jemmy and Mandy. Were they safe? Were they happy and whole? What sort of wondrous surprises might the 1980s have in store for them, if that was indeed where they were now?

Only when Jamie was certain that they were quite alone, out of earshot of any of General Arnold’s passing patrols, did Jamie take Claire’s basket from her arm and set it on the ground. He couldn’t wait. Best to get it over and be done with it. She stared at him, bewilderment turning into concern when she saw Jamie’s face in the orange afternoon sunshine. 

“Claire,” Jamie began, still completely at a loss for what to say, how to say it. He put his hands on her slender arms, capturing her complete attention.

Her frown deepened. “Oh God. What? What’s happened? You would only call me Claire and look like that if something awful had happened.”

“No, it’s no’ like that,” he replied. Jamie tried to take a breath but his chest was too tight. _Dear God, please give me the wisdom to manage this, I beg of You._ “It’s… I dinna ken how to explain, but, it’s to do wi’ John.”

Claire was thoroughly puzzled. “What’s wrong with John? Jamie, did you get into another fight with him? Don’t you think one significant skull injury is enough for—”

“Nay, I didna beat him. I…” He swallowed hard and dropped his hands to his sides. “Ye ken that I care for John a great deal, aye?”

“Yes…”

“And ye ken how he feels about me.”

“I do.” Claire’s voice was deliberately slow, looking for the connection, wary. Her expressive face was awash with the possibilities, growing more and more dire as the pauses stretched on.

Jamie blew out a breath. Perhaps it was best to start from the very beginning. “When I was at Helwater, John and I had a terrible fight. We both said regrettable things to each other. Truth be told, I was mostly at fault. And I nearly killed him.” Claire listened patiently, still apprehensive. “The next night, John apologized. I shouldna let him, it should have been me to beg forgiveness. But the thing he said… All I could think of, all I could see was Ra—. Was Randall. And even the next day, I was still trapped in my own heed, couldna see that I’d hurt John too. He’d seen something, I dinna ken how, but he kent my anger for what it was—old fear, old scars. And he wished to show me that it didna have to be so.”

Claire’s glass face showed signs of cracking, as did her voice. “Jamie, I need you to very specifically explain—precisely—what you are talking about. There may be room in our marriage for secrets, but I am asking you directly to share this entire secret.”

“I’m trying. I told ye, I dinna ken how to explain this,” Jamie said. Claire spread her hands in a brief apology and nodded for him to continue. He licked his lips, dry from his cowardice, and plunged on. “The argument concerned the nature of love between men.”

Claire held up her hand, cutting him off. “Did you—are you trying to tell me… Jamie, did you have sex with John?”

Of course she would see it so easily. Jamie’s voice was barely a whisper when he said, “Yes.”

Her eyes had gone watery but she wasn’t crying yet. Her hands shook by her sides. “Alright. And this is in the past now?”

Jamie couldn’t answer. He opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. 

Claire’s entire body trembled now and the first tear fell, shattering her beautiful face and burning Jamie’s heart like acid. “Is that why you’ve not come home from your weekly dinner engagements lately? Because you’ve been fucking _John_?”

“It’s no’ about the sex, Claire, would ye let me—” 

She hit hard for a woman. Jamie sucked in a breath through his nose, focused his attention on his stinging cheek from where she’d slapped him. 

“I have risked absolutely _everything_ for you,” Claire said through clenched teeth. The tears fell silently, her face contorted into a grimace of anguish and disgust. “I traveled through time for you—twice, on purpose. I nearly lost my relationship with our daughter—for you. I crossed an ocean. I was shipwrecked. I’ve been beaten and I’ve been raped. I’ve been threatened and stoned in the goddamned street. All because I crossed through hell itself to come back to you. How long?” Her voice rose, steely despite the tremor from her grief. “How goddamned long have you been _fucking_ him!” she roared.

“Claire—” 

“Shut up! Frank cheated on me until the day he died. But he wouldn’t divorce me and I stayed with him because _you_ told me to, you son of a bitch!” She slapped him again. Jamie didn’t bother bracing for the impact, just let Claire hurt him. He’d been hit harder. He deserved harder… 

“And now,” she went on, in a true rage, face red and splotchy. “And now you tell me that you’re no better? I don’t even want to know—yes, you know what—yes I do want to know. Has this been going on the entire time I’ve been back?”

“No,” Jamie answered. He’d never felt so small, so evil. “These past three weeks.”

Claire’s jaw dropped, wordless gasps all the noise she could make for a time. “And last night?”

“Yes.” 

She clenched her fists but didn’t strike him. “When you came back and you beat John for sleeping with me. And then you raged at me for the same _when we thought you were dead, Jamie_! Who were you jealous of, hmm? Me or him?” 

She didn’t let him answer, and there was nothing for him to say. “You goddamned, fucking _arsehole_! How dare you? How fucking dare you! How could you, Jamie?” She pounded her fists against his chest, stomach, arms, whatever she could. “Am I not enough for you? Am I not good enough anymore? I never stopped loving you, even when I thought it would kill me. How is it not the same for you anymore?” Claire dissolved into wordless sobs, weakly pummeling Jamie, the blows ineffective and not really painful. Better that she hurt him than herself taking her rage out on trees or rocks, he thought.

He wrapped his arms tight around her in a bear-hug, holding her arms at her sides. The places where she'd hit him stung or throbbed, shallow, tender bruises to follow, inconsequential. “Listen, please. _Would ye listen to me, Sassenach?_ ” She clenched her fists into his coat until the seams creaked. “I didna stop loving you, Claire, please, I’m begging ye, let me explain!”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Claire shouted, pushing against him but Jamie held her tight.

"Sassenach, I love you," Jamie said, desperate, pleading. "I love ye both and it doesna take away from my love for you, do ye understand?"

"No! No, I don't fucking understand!" She shoved away from him and Jamie released her. "You gave yourself to _me_. You married _me_. Did you just think I'd be okay with it? How could you betray me like this, you fucking bastard!"

"Claire—"

"No! If you still love me, you'll end it with him. Today." Claire's voice had gone hoarse from shouting and from her furious tears. "I don't want you to give up your relationship with your son, but you've got to send John away."

That was it then. Jamie had to choose between them. Hot tears cut down his cheeks. "I gave up my own honor and my own dignity by not taking Frank away from you, did I no'?" He didn't have the strength to yell. "I let Jack Randall take a piece of my soul to hell wi' him when I threw the duel, when I agreed no' to kill him for my own sake. Because doing so _might_ have meant that Frank wouldna been born. Because _you_ loved him. Because _you_ wished it. I didna ask ye no' to love Frank." 

"That's different," Claire spat. "He was my first love. And I chose you in the end, didn’t I?"

Jamie nodded, his heart in pieces at Claire's feet. "Aye. Ye did. And you are my first love and nothing will ever change that.”

“Besides, I never _fucked him_ while we were together!”

“Nay, but ye let Jack Randall share our bed when ye forbade me to kill him!” Jamie got a grip on himself before he resorted to shouting. Taking a deep, if trembling breath, he went on. “It’s no’ about you or him. I ken that doesna make it right, what I’ve done. But do ye no’ see it? Do ye think I love Bree or Willie any less for the sake of the other?"

After a pause, Claire said, "No."

"Nay. Because the heart makes room. Do ye think my capacity to love that much smaller than yer own?"

"Fuck. You," she snarled. "Choose. Choose, you goddamn son of a bitch!"

Jamie wished she would go back to hitting him, but his wife wouldn't come near him now. "Please, Claire. Dinna ask that. Ye're tearing my guts out. I canna choose between you."

"You would pick that cock-sucking whore of a redcoat over your own wife?" Claire shook her head in disbelief and dismay, her eyes red and puffy, cheeks and the front of her bodice wet with her furious tears. 

Her words struck Jamie like a physical blow. In a moment of stupid, foolish weakness, his temper flared. “And what piece of my soul did ye suppose Jack Randall took from me? Did ye even hear what I said? Have ye any idea at all how much he destroyed? And John _still_ cared enough to help me get it back, even after I tried to kill him for a crime he didna commit.”

Claire held her head in both of her trembling hands, the fingers curled like claws next to her temples. She said something but Jamie couldn’t make it out. He made a noise of confusion. “I said, it’s bloody over!” she screamed.

Jamie’s heart stopped, all the air knocked out of his lungs. It took four tries before his voice worked. “What? Claire, Sassenach, please just lis—”

“Don’t you dare call me that! I am through listening,” Claire snapped. “I am going back to the house. Do not follow me.” She was sobbing so hard now that Jamie could barely understand her. “You were the love of my life, Jamie. I never thought you would cast me aside like this. I never want to see you again.” Turning her back on Jamie, she headed toward town. She got a few steps away, picked up her skirts, and ran, her basket forgotten on the grass.

Jamie stared after her, wanting nothing more in the entire world than to go after her, to hold her, to beg her forgiveness. To agree to all of her terms, swear to never see John again, to give it all up for her. Like he'd promised so long ago. All that was his belonged to her.

But to do that would break his oath to John. He'd not sworn the man fealty or loyalty, but his honesty and honor. And that too meant being honest with himself. Because he hadn't been exaggerating when he said that he felt as if Randall had taken a piece of him away. More than his honor and dignity, more than his choices. The part of him that could see men in the same light in which he saw women and do so without guilt or revulsion. The part of him that had delighted in secretly kissing the breath out of a handsome young man in Paris when he was at Université. The part of him that might have been able to accept comfort from John when he offered it in Ardsmuir. 

Randall had, in essence, reduced Jamie's capacity to love and find attraction and pleasure in the intimate connection with another by half. Had buried it under a mass of inky black fear that Jamie would find the same evil and cruelty in himself as had consumed Randall. And John, through his patient and courageous love of him—despite Jamie's stubborn refusal of it—had peeled away the shell, and shown him that it was still _himself_ , and not Randall in there. Just as Claire had helped Jamie uncover his will to fight, John had helped him overcome his fear of his attraction to men.

But it had cost him Claire. 

Jamie sank to the ground, landed hard in the grass and wept as he hadn't since he'd sent her back to Frank. Since he'd sacrificed all hope of a life with her to spare her the horror of Culloden and all that would follow. It wasn't worth it, to have driven his wife away. _It wasn't fucking worth it._

* * *

It was quite late and raining when Grey and Willie left Fergus and Marsali’s company bound for their house on Chestnut Street. They walked together, hasty through the chilly drizzle. They didn’t speak beyond casual observations, focusing instead on making their way home as quickly as possible. 

The shadowy figure sitting on his front step startled him at first. But then Grey caught sight of the bright plaid wrapped around his broad shoulders and recognized Jamie. Dread slid into Grey’s stomach like tar. The light from the streetlamps showed him a miserable sight, his red hair soaked and nearly black in the rainy night, shoulders hunched, face despondent. 

“Jamie?” Grey squatted on the steps at his side and put an arm around his shoulders. He was shaking, though Grey didn’t think it had anything to do with the cold, which was insubstantial. “What’s the matter? Why didn’t you go inside?”

“I didna… I didna ken if ye’d want me to,” Jamie murmured. His voice was thick, as if he’d been crying. “Claire. She—she threw me out.” He broke down then, his tears lost in the rain dripping down his face. “An’ maybe it was wrong of me to come to ye after what she said, but I didna ken what else to do.”

Grey swore under his breath and swept Jamie’s wet curls out of his face. “Oh God, Jamie. My darling, I’m so sorry. Come inside. Let’s get dried off and we can talk about it.” He’d forgotten entirely about Willie, silently watching this play out, until he brushed past John to open the door. _Well, this is certainly going to lead to an uncomfortable conversation._

But Willie said nothing as he built up a fire in the parlor hearth and dragged a chair next to it. Grey, arm still around Jamie, led him to the fire and helped him out of his wet clothes. Willie returned a few minutes later, himself changed into a dry shirt and breeches, carrying a quilt draped over his arm. He handed this to Grey and then sat on the settee, all without a word. He sat a respectful distance away, behind Jamie’s line of sight, but the statement was clear: _I am here for you and I am listening._

Well, no help for it then. Grey wrapped Jamie in the blanket and urged him to sit in the chair with gentle hands. Fraser went willingly, all the fight gone out of him, and John knelt on the floor in front of him, clothes still cold and wet and unimportant.

“I told her,” Jamie said, without preamble. “I’ve never seen her so disgusted wi’ me before. So furious.” He’d mostly stopped weeping, but a single tear rolled down his cheek at this. “She told me to send ye away.”

Grey swallowed hard. “And is that what you’re here to do?”

After a gut-wrenching pause, Jamie shook his head slowly. “Nay. I tried to make her understand. I tried to show her that I could love ye both, but she wouldna hear it. And now… Now I’ve lost her.” He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent tears. 

The sight of Jamie so broken cut Grey to his core. His own eyes burnt with tears. He should have left. He should have gone back to Virginia or made arrangements to leave the colonies altogether. “Jamie… Christ, I’m… I’m so sorry. I cannot even beg your forgiveness for the mess that I’ve made.”

Jamie shook his head. “Nay, John.” He looked up to meet Grey’s eyes. “I promised ye I wouldna be the dishonorable coward any longer. I did what was right in my heart and I told the truth. I was so close. Everything was so close to feeling right. But she didna like the truth. So, she chose. And that is her right.”

“Would it help if I left?” Grey whispered. He had to force the words past the knot in his throat, terrified that Jamie’s answer would be yes.

But Jamie shook his head. “Please, John. Please dinna leave me too.”

Grey wrapped his arms around Jamie and pulled him into an embrace. “I won’t leave you, my love. I promise.”

After seeing Jamie to bed, Grey changed at last out of his own wet clothes. He checked to be sure Jamie was asleep and then slipped out of his bedroom to find Willie. He didn’t have to go far. His son leaned against the wall in the corridor opposite Grey’s door, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. “I think you and I have a thing to discuss," Grey said, anxious heart pounding in his chest.

Willie nodded. “I’d say we have a few things to discuss.”

Grey kept several decanters of brandy and whisky downstairs in the parlor, and they returned to the warm hearth. He poured two glasses of brandy and handed one to Willie. “I suppose you have deduced that Jamie and I have become… more than friends.”

Willie nodded. “No great feat after that scene earlier, but yes.”

Grey braced himself for an onslaught of terrible words, waited for his son to become incensed. The silence stretched between them. Willie drank his brandy with a guarded look of calm contemplation while John fought the urge to start pacing the floor. His left thumb twitched against his little finger, where Hector's ring used to be. "I… imagine you have questions."

"Oh, so many," Willie answered, his eyes wide, eyebrows high. 

"Ask, then. And I'll answer as best I can." Grey took a long pull of brandy and clutched the glass against his chest. This way he wouldn't drop it if he lost his nerve.

"I don't know where to begin." Willie sank onto the settee, blowing out a long exhale. "Is that why you adopted me? Because you were… involved with Jamie?"

"No. We were no more than friends then. It was for your sake and for his. I cared for you a great deal, and I've loved Jamie since before you were born. Though his reciprocation is a new development. But we both believed it was best for you—and it was your grandfather’s wish, as you know—if I served as your guardian.” He paused, seeing the turmoil cross his son’s eyes, the insecurities of a child who has felt abandoned or manipulated by his family. Grey knew the feeling, long ago. He sat next to Willie, put a hand on his arm in a way he hoped was reassuring. Willie did not flinch away. “I hope you understand that I love you as if you were my own flesh and blood. It wouldn’t matter to me if you were Jamie’s son or Ellesmere’s." 

Willie stared at Grey with that piercing gaze, so like his father's. The one that went right through a man, saw all the little moving parts inside of him, noticed where they would break. At last, he went on. "Did my mother know?"

He meant Isobel, of course. "You mean did she know that…"

"That you prefer men."

"I don't know," Grey answered honestly. "She was an astute woman, but I have no idea if she would have thought to guess. I never told her, if that is what you want to know."

Willie's lips were pressed together in a hard line. "Were you faithful to her?"

"Yes," he replied immediately. "And I did love your mother, in a way. But there was nothing at all romantic about my feelings for her." Of course that would have been one of the first questions on Willie's mind. He'd loved Isobel a great deal. Her death had devastated him as a child, and he was always very protective of her, even years after her passing.

"Is your _involvement_ with Father the real reason we're here, why we seem to have been annexed into the Fraser family?”

Grey shook his head and took another sip. Christ, there had to be a better way to talk about this. “No. What I told you was the real reason. That Claire is from the future and knows how the war will end. And that Jamie and I agreed we would be better on the same side for once.” He chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. “Jesus, if you think I’d make up a story like that to avoid telling you I was sleeping with Jamie, then you must truly think me mad.”

Willie laughed too, though shorter, quieter, less mirth. “There would be less outlandish deceptions, that’s for damn certain. But since you brought it up, are you? Mad, I mean.”

“I’m sure I must be. To be both in this situation and talking about it so openly with my son.” Grey drained his glass, rose to refill it from the decanter, and poured more into Willie’s glass. He sat back down next to him, the silence stretching again but this time, much easier. “May I ask you a question now?” Grey said after a time.

“Seems fair.”

“You didn’t appear particularly surprised by all this. Why?” Grey fiddled with his glass, scraped his fingernails along the cuts in the crystal.

Willie raised his eyebrows as if the answer were incredibly obvious. “I have eyes, Papa. You’re very discreet. But I know you, very well in fact. I don’t believe anyone who knows you less would have reason to suspect your preferences. I’ve also seen the way you and Father are around each other, the way you look at him when you don’t think anyone else is watching you.” He paused and met Grey’s eyes again. “You do love him, don’t you?”

“So much that it hurts.” John frowned. “Why are you not upset by this? I would have thought you’d be… angry or appalled. Disgusted even.”

Willie blew out another long breath. “That’s a devil of a good question, isn’t it? Well, perhaps I’ve already used up all the anger I’ll ever need to spend on you for decisions you made with my best interests at heart. Perhaps I saw this coming somehow. Either way, it seems an awfully trivial and petty thing to be appalled or disgusted or angry at a man just because he prefers to sleep with men, does it not? Besides, there are more important things to worry about.” He pointed up toward the ceiling, indicating Jamie asleep in Grey’s bedroom upstairs. “Such as, what are we going to do about him and Mother Claire?”

Grey scrubbed at his forehead with the fingers of one hand. “Christ. I haven’t the slightest idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I have enabled comment moderation now, to mitigate the flow of biphobia I've been seeing. The story is tagged correctly. I will approve all comments (regardless of whether they are positive or negative) provided they don't fall into the category of hateful. I appreciate your understanding.


	4. Chapter 4

Jamie awoke the next morning slowly, feeling as if his skull had caved in and then been filled with hot sand to shore it up. He rolled to the side, to see if Claire was awake, and his sore eyes settled on John, frowning in his sleep but stirring toward wakefulness. The bottom dropped out of Jamie's stomach. 

It hadn’t been a nightmare. Jamie had really told Claire about his affair with John, she had really told him not to come home. She really was lost to him. He turned his face into the pillow—which smelled of John—and wept as quietly as he could.

He'd lost Claire again. This time he'd driven her away by his own actions. His own wretched selfishness. He'd been content enough the way things were. At least, until he hadn’t been. And then the wanting had been too much, the desperate need to love John. Perhaps if he'd resisted the physical urges, fought the sense of drowning whenever he was around John, maybe then—but no. Claire hated him for the sum total of it. The sex, the confession of love, and no amount of words would ever repair that damage. It was thorough and it was absolute. And Jamie had wrought it all.

He laid there, too paralyzed by his grief and regret to move. A strong arm snaked around him, held him tight. _John_. Offering what comfort he could, not demanding anything of Jamie at all, just there, silent and non-judgmental. He didn't deserve it, but John gave it anyway.

"Come here," John whispered, loosening his grip enough for Jamie to roll over in his arms. Jamie did, wrapped his arms around John's middle and let the man hold him close against his chest. It might have been minutes or hours that Jamie clung to him, until his sobs slowed to a halt and he fell back into a fitful sleep. 

When Jamie awoke again, alone this time, the sun was bright through the window, the room awash with light. The curtains had been opened and tied back. He squeezed his eyes shut again and groaned, covering his eyes with one arm. He should get up, get dressed, do… something. But what was the point? 

The door opened and John came back into the room, dressed in breeches, shirt, and waistcoat. He carried a tray bearing a plate, decanter, and glasses, and Jamie was only interested in the contents of the decanter.

John set the tray down on the bedside table and offered him a glass with a generous pour of whisky. Jamie accepted this and took a long sip; it was decent whisky, smokey and strong. John held out the plate, piled with cheese and bread and fruit and generous slices of ham. He was far too wretched to eat. Jamie shook his head and John shot him a stern look, but set the plate aside anyway.

“I am here to listen, if you’d like to talk.” John laid a hand on Jamie’s bare thigh. He’d slept in only a shirt, the bedclothes kicked off in his restlessness.

“I should have spoken to Claire about my feelings for ye before I did anything foolish,” Jamie said. He stared into his whisky glass, the contents rapidly dwindling. 

John sighed. “That may be true. You’re a very passionate man, Jamie. I’ve never known you to not jump into anything with both feet. You are very quick to action, though admittedly you’re usually more calculating than this. And at any rate, this is a matter of the heart, not of the head. Is it not?”

Jamie took another drink. “I suppose ye’re right. I never could think clearly where you or Claire were concerned.” He drained his glass and John offered the plate again. Jamie shook his head but John took the glass from him and balanced the plate on Jamie’s lap.

“Eat something and I’ll give you more whisky,” John said. Jamie glared at him but John didn’t back down and Jamie eventually plucked a single red grape from the bunch. He popped this into his mouth and chewed. It was tart and not at all what he wanted, but he didn’t have the energy to fight about it. “What is it that you want?” John asked him. “I don’t just mean with me or with Claire, but in general. Suspending your insatiable predisposition toward self-sacrifice for a moment, what is best for _you_?”

Jamie tried a slice of bread. It was hearty and fresh and buttery and John obligingly poured him more whisky after he finished it. He considered John’s question while he drank. No one had really asked him that before. It had always been irrelevant. “All I’ve ever wanted in this world is my family. To be able to care for those who I love, to keep them safe and together, to provide for them. My children—all of them—and their bairns. Claire by my side. And you.” He finally met John’s gaze. “I ken ‘tis wrong and ‘tis selfish. But I canna help it.” Jamie’s eyes stung but he’d cried all he could. “I ken I’m damned for it, and I ken it’s no’ possible, but there ‘tis.”

John laid his hand on Jamie’s cheek. “Oh, my darling. There is nothing selfish about any of that. I asked what _you_ want. And what _you_ want is the opportunity to love and serve others. That is the least selfish thing you could possibly want. I’m sure that if Claire could see—”

“But she doesna want to.” Jamie pulled away from John’s touch, unable to bear the feel of comfort he didn’t deserve. “Even if she could, she doesna wish it. And that is her right, her choice.” He took another large mouthful of whisky, let it warm his empty stomach. Jamie shook his head, which was beginning to swim pleasantly from the rapid application of spirits. 

“You have a choice too, you know.” John brushed aside a wild lock of ruddy hair that had fallen over Jamie’s eyes. “Whatever you decide to do next, I will support you.”

Jamie finished off the second glass of whisky, thinking. At last, he said. “I suppose I’ll give her some time to calm down. Perhaps she’ll hear me then.”

“Alright. In the meantime, you’ll stay with me, yes?”

Jamie nodded. “Thank ye, John.”

“Of course. Now, I imagine you’ve not eaten a thing since breakfast yesterday, have you?” John lifted the plate from Jamie’s lap and held it in front of him. He raised a single eyebrow in expectation, staring him down.

With a grumble of token protest, Jamie picked up a piece of cheese and popped it into his mouth. John could be as stubborn as Jamie himself when he made up his mind to be and he simply did not have the strength to fight about it.

* * *

On his second morning waking up in Grey’s bed, Jamie braved dressing and joining him and Willie for breakfast. He barely spoke and only picked at his food. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, swollen from another fitful night. Grey had awoken in the wee hours to hear Jamie quietly weeping into his pillow. Unable to bear his lover’s pain, he had enveloped him in his arms and held him tight, stroking Jamie’s hair and whispering nonsensical sounds of comfort into his ear. 

For days, Grey watched Jamie languish. He moved about parts of his life in a daze, handling the occasional errand for Grey or Willie. He read a lot. Rather, he stared at the same page for hours at a time until the candle had burnt down and plunged him into darkness. Grey held him every night, let Jamie cry silently against his chest until he fell into a tense sleep. One night, Jamie begged Grey to take him. "Please, John. Please make me feel something that's not this sorrow." And Grey had obliged, making love to him slowly under the bedclothes in the dark room. 

_I love you,_ Grey thought, over and over as he gently brought Jamie to the edge. _I love you. Please, God, let me take his pain. Just let him feel the goodness and love between us. Jamie, come back to me._ Jamie spilled into Grey's hand with a wordless, broken gasp and fell asleep afterward in Grey's arms. 

When he was certain that Jamie had fallen asleep, John finally indulged in his own grief. His tears fell silently into Jamie's hair and he mourned the vibrant, passionate man that Jamie had been. Grey wept for Jamie's sake and for his own, for the price of their love that was too steep for either of them to cover. And he wept for Claire, who they’d hurt so deeply. _She should be here_ , he thought. _He will never stop needing her. Oh, my dears. I am so sorry._

The next morning, Grey slipped out of bed, whispering to a stirring Jamie that he should sleep as long as he needed. He dressed, anxiety and dread urging him to crawl back into his lover's arms. But he persisted, resolved to do whatever he could to fix what he'd helped destroy. If he thought too specifically about his errand, about what he would say to Claire, he'd lose his nerve altogether. So Grey focused only on his immediate actions, the feel of the comb through his hair, the weight of his simple gray coat on his shoulders.

He did not see Willie as he made his way out of the house and turned onto Chestnut Street. Either his son was not yet awake—unlikely—or he'd left the house already. Claire was likely visiting patients this time of morning, so Grey headed toward the print shop, thinking Marsali might be able to tell him where to find her. It was a cold morning, and Grey’s breath made white clouds in front of him. 

Jesus, what the bloody hell _would_ he say to her when he found her? _I’m sorry?_ Such hollow words were not up to the task. If he could just get the three of them in the same _room_ , maybe then…

William dashed out of the print shop and intercepted Grey. He was flushed and wide-eyed, forgetting to close the door behind him. “Mother Claire. She’s gone.”

Grey stopped short. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

Fergus joined them outside, his right hand smudged with ink. “She had Ian take her south, along the trade road.”

“But… why?” Grey asked, his mind racing, trying desperately to put it all together. “What’s there? Or who?”

“A stone circle, Papa.”

_Oh. Shit._ “Why?”

“Milady said she was going back to Brianna,” Fergus said. 

Christ, how far could they have gotten? Were they on horseback? Surely they were. How much ground could a woman her age reasonably cover in a day, even with an Indian scout guiding her? Knowing Claire, probably a hell of a lot. 

“We need to go after her,” Willie said. “If she leaves, Father will…” He swallowed and shook his head. “I can’t stand the thought of what it would do to him.”

“It would kill him.” Jamie had said something to Grey before about fire feasts and that gemstones were a key to traveling through the stones across time. He narrowed his eyes at Fergus. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“Milady made us promise not to.” Fergus looked genuinely remorseful. “She is heartbroken. She would not say what happened, but I know it’s to do with Milord.”

“Yes, it is.” Grey turned to Willie. “You can help me track them?”

“Of course, but Father could do it faster.”

Grey shook his head, already moving. “There isn’t time. We’re leaving as soon as we can find horses.” The gravity of the situation finally fell into place when Grey realized the date. Samhain was in three days.

* * *

Lord John and William rode hard out of Philadelphia within the hour, pausing only to rest and water the horses. They tore across the land, riding day and night as if the hounds of hell were chasing them. After the first night of riding, Grey was certain they’d lost the trail. But a crofter had seen a woman matching Claire’s description and a young Indian man on horseback and directed them to turn west. 

“‘Twas a day, day and a half ago, iffin I’m not mistaken,” the man had said. “They wasn’t riding near as hard as you lot. If you hurry you’ll catch them up.”

“Thank you, sir,” John said, tipping his hat and climbing back into his saddle.

The next day, they found the road. It bore signs of recent travel, including a pair of shod hoofprints heading south. Spurred by the signs of life, they charged on. Grey had no earthly idea how they would actually locate the circle, or how they would know if they were too late or not. In theory, they should see Ian on his way back to Philadelphia if they were too late. 

They were forced to stop just after nightfall, the horses too exhausted to go on. They didn't have any supplies with them to speak of, and they made what hasty camp they could under the towering walnut trees. Neither Grey nor William had spoken much since they'd raced out of town. What was there to say, after all? Dwelling on their worry wouldn't do. Nevertheless, Grey ruminated. Judging by the pensive expression Willie let slip, so did his son. What if they were too late? What if Grey couldn't convince her to stay? What if they never found them? What if Claire took one look at Grey and shot him where he stood?

They dozed in shifts. The moment the horses began to stir, they were moving again. It was the fire feast. If they didn't find Claire and Ian today, they never would. 

As they rode, the sky lightened from a rich velvety gray to pale lavender, then pink. As the sun crested the horizon, Grey began to feel an unsettling prickling at his nape. Something was wrong. He kept alert, looking for the source of the threat. He sensed his son tense beside him, either alerted to the sensation of impending doom or to Grey's own wariness. 

Then he saw them. Two horses, hobbled and grazing off the road. Grey dismounted, his boots crunching in the dried leaves piled around them. His eyes scanned the dense forest but found no sign of human life. 

"Claire?" Grey called. 

Willie took his reins from him. "Go," he said. "I'll see to them and catch you up."

Grey nodded his thanks and approached the abandoned horses, but there was no positive indication of their ownership. "Claire? Ian!" 

The weird, danger sense along his neck intensified and an icy fear gripped him. "Claire! Are you there?" Oh God, what if they were too late? 

* * *

Jamie emerged from John’s room when the mid morning sun penetrated the drawn curtains and landed directly over his eyes. The house was empty, save for the housekeeper who informed Jamie that John and Willie had both left early without a bite of breakfast. “Without so much as a word too,” she said. “But it’s all ready, been keeping it warm for you, sir.”

Whatever appetite Jamie may have had was soured by a nameless worry churning in his stomach and the aroma of overcooked eggs. “Nay, but I thank ye,” he said, as politely as he could. The housekeeper nodded with a put-out kind of sigh. 

There were any number of places that John could have gone, but none that Jamie would have expected him to go so early and without a word of warning. He left the house on Chestnut street, thinking only that a walk would help him work out what to do about Claire. He couldn’t take being still any longer. It had been two weeks since he had broken Claire’s heart, since he had ruined everything. Jamie had no hope of repairing it, but he owed her… well, he owed her everything and then some. 

Jamie found himself on the road to Fergus’ print shop without really intending to head that way. Despite the guilt and remorse tearing him apart, he hoped Claire would be there. Even if she wouldn’t see him, just to look at her…

He was a few blocks away from the shop when he spotted Jenny with her market basket. Félicité in tow, apparently bound for some merchant. His heart stuttered with joy to see them and he stepped in the street to intercept them on the other side. 

Félicité spotted him first. “Grandpere!” she shouted, breaking away from Jenny and charging him like a miniature bull. Grinning, Jamie squatted to catch her and lift her up in his arms. She clung to him and kissed his cheek, the warmth of his granddaughter’s embrace a balm to his broken spirit. At last she pulled back. “Grandpere, I missed you. Look! I have a wiggly tooth!”

“Have ye now?” Jamie replied. “Well done, lass.” He met his sister’s gaze and his grin faded. Jenny wasn’t precisely scowling up at him, but she was none too pleased, her arms crossed over her chest. There was a deep concern behind her eyes too. How was it possible that his sister, a woman so small they hardly looked to be of the same lineage, could make him feel such shame with a single glance? Normally it would annoy him, but this morning, with so much else weighing heavy on his soul, his guilt wouldn’t permit his indignation. He cleared his throat and glanced down at the paving stones before chancing to look at her face again. “Ye have a thing to say, Jenny, say it.”

She raised her eyebrows and planted her fists on her hips. “Oh, I have a great many things to say to ye, James Fraser. None of them suitable for a bairn’s hearing.”

Félicité looked between Jamie and Jenny, and Jamie set her back on her feet. She held his hand and stayed close by his side, worrying at the frill of her apron with her free hand.

“Aye,” Jamie said. “Aye, I expect ye spoke to Claire.”

“Indeed I did.” She shook her head. “At length. Ye made a right mess of things, did ye no’?”

Jamie swallowed, but there was no denying it. “Aye, I did.”

“Hmm.” Jenny appraised him, lips pursed. “I offered to kill ye, but she said ye werena worth the shot.”

There was nothing to say to that, and Jamie just nodded, his sister’s words ringing true to his own ears. 

“And ye were just going to stay away?” Jenny asked. “For how long? Did ye give up so easily? I love ye a bhráthair but I dinna understand ye at all. But that is all I’ll say on the subject with Félicité here.”

“Do ye ken where she is?”

“Aye, I do.” A conflict crossed Jenny’s face, a decision hot on its heels. “She went to Brianna. Ian _og_ took her to a circle of stones she said Roger Mac found. He said he kent the place, thought he could find it again.”

The bottom dropped out of Jamie’s stomach. “What! When? How far did Ian say it was? Why did ye no’ tell me!”

Jenny held up a hand to stop his raving. “Is it no best? Ye dinna want her anymore, and she has a place to go. I wasna going to say a thing, except yer Englishman made quite a stink about it.”

That brought Jamie up short. “He—what?”

“He’s gone after her with Willie,” Jenny said as if this were obvious. She rolled her eyes. “I canna stand the thought of ye locked in that big house all alone, probably drinking yerself to half into the grave. I’ve had my fill of watching ye haunt the forests when ye lived in the cave. I willna do it again.”

The hairs on the back of Jamie’s neck stood on end a fraction of a second before Félicité gasped and squeezed his hand tight. He whirled around, shoving his granddaughter behind him into Jenny’s arms. He reached for his dirk with his left hand. The shot rang out before he’d completed his spin. Something hit him hard in the left shoulder and he staggered, but kept his balance. _Shot_ , he thought dimly in the back of his mind. He refused to give up his footing. His body was the only thing protecting Jenny and Félicité. 

Jamie couldn’t feel the handle of his dirk, couldn’t get his fingers wrapped around it. He switched to his right hand. The gunman wasn’t far away, Jamie could see him. Close enough to tell that it was deliberate. Close enough to make out the face. Dark hair, unpowdered, pulled back in a club. Nondescript dark suit, rough from travel. The face though. _Oh God, the face._

Behind him, Jenny screamed. It wasn’t fear or helplessness in her voice. It was to draw the attention of onlookers, to pressure the gunman into fleeing or making himself known. 

Jamie’s vision went black around the edges. His shirt was wet and sticking to him. The gunman had disappeared into the gathering crowd of gawkers already, gone. He felt small hands on him. Jenny, perhaps. The pain had begun to settle in. Jesus, the pain. His knees went watery and buckled. The stones were hard and chilly under him. The fall probably would have hurt had he been able to feel anything but the agony in his shoulder, dripping down his arm, seeping toward his chest. 

“Sassenach,” he muttered. Then he closed his eyes, unable to keep them open anymore. No, no Claire this time. No Claire to fix him. No Claire to heal him. Just empty pain. And darkness. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fills my Bad Things Happen Bingo square: **Don't Let Them See You Cry**

Grey left the road and stalked into the trees near the horses, the brush immediately growing thick. The prickling was a low buzzing now, something _just barely_ within the range of his hearing, like a far-off beehive. "Claire! Ian!" They had to be close, hadn’t they? The buzzing drew him, growing gradually louder as Grey approached.

An enormous mass of rhododendron before him seemed to be the source of the buzzing, louder, more frightful. But somehow, beneath the ferocity of the noise, seductive.

There was no logical explanation for how Grey knew that Claire was in that brush. But know it he did, and he surged toward it.

Slender, strong arms wrapped around Grey's waist from behind. "I canna let ye go in there, John," said a Scottish voice. 

Grey whirled, nearly throwing a wicked punch on reflex alone. "Ian! Where is she? Let me go." He pried his way out of Ian's grip and backed up toward the mass of rhododendron.

"It's best if ye let her go, aye?" Ian said, following Grey. "Have ye no' done enough?"

So Ian knew. Grey couldn’t blame the young man for his defense of Claire. "She's in there, isn't she?" Grey nodded at the huge rhododendron that had devoured so much of the forest. "Is it too late? Is she gone? Answer me, damn your eyes!"

Ian lurched forward and grabbed at John again, but Willie threw himself between them and took a strong hold of Ian's arms. "Cousin, wait! You haven't seen Jamie since it happened." Willie and Ian shoved against each other, vying for control. "Go, Papa! Go now!"

Grey dove into the rhododendron and the swarm of bees. He crawled as fast as he could, scrabbling through the hellish maze of foliage. The buzzing grew louder. "Claire!" he cried. The buzzing was oppressive now, something tangible and heavy. It drew Grey in just as it drove him away. The sun had come up before he'd dived in, but here in the deep wild growth, the sun couldn't penetrate. Time itself felt meaningless.

"Claire! Oh God, please answer me!" If she did, Grey couldn’t hear her. The buzzing was a horrendous roar. Grey gritted his teeth against it, plunging on. The branches tore at his hair and clothes, whipped at his face and hands. It might have hurt. He thought he felt a trickle of blood on his face. None of it mattered. All that mattered was getting through the swarm to Claire. 

She was on her knees, doubled over, hands clamped over her ears. Her lovely face was contorted into a terrible grimace of agony. The roar was immeasurably intense here, a small circle of stones in a bare patch of the rhododendron hell. Grey felt as if his skull would split open. His heart pounded in his chest. Surely it would kill them both. 

“Claire!” Grey cried, but he couldn’t hear himself over the roar. Claire’s words echoed in his mind: _It’s worse every time._

He watched with horror as Claire crawled toward the central stone. Her right hand, trembling violently, reached toward it. Grey found something like resolve—or perhaps absolute desperation. He clawed his way over the dirt and dead leaves toward Claire, shouting for her but she gave no indication that she could hear him. Grey got one arm around her waist and hauled her away, rolling her over his own body and putting himself between her and the center stone. 

“Stop! Claire! God, you have to hear me!” It was like being ripped in two. Grey was fucking _determined_ to keep Claire here, to hold her. But every bone in his body was drawn toward the stone. And Claire fought him _hard_. She grappled with him, trying to wriggle away, hitting him with her shaking fists. Her eyes were unfocused, unseeing, either from the pain of the roaring all around them or from grief or how hard Grey was gripping her, trying to drag her away. He couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting away from here. Away from the chaos.

Somewhere, very far away, Grey shouted for Willie and for Ian. There was no way they heard him. He could barely hear himself. But he couldn’t do this on his own. He wasn’t strong enough to fight Claire _and_ the pull of the stones.

Grey lost his grip on Claire. He reached out for her but his fingers came down into bare soil and leaves. A thousand knives scratched at him, cut him, tore the seams of his clothes. The cacophony was a constant pressure in his skull, blinding him. 

Slowly, as if across an unfathomable distance, Grey heard Claire shrieking in terror or rage. The horrendous roar faded back to the bee-swarm buzz, then finally a quiet, far-off hum. He became aware of rough hands on him, a masculine body behind him, holding him where they sat in the grass.

He was out of the rhododendron hell, far away from it. Ian let go of Grey, both of them gasping for breath. When his vision cleared and came back into focus, he saw Willie similarly sat on the ground, holding Claire. She sobbed against his chest and he rocked her back and forth, stroking her wild, unbound hair and whispering reassuring nonsense to her.

The quiet was deafening and Grey’s throat was painfully raw. He crawled to Claire, not trusting his legs to hold him just yet. “Claire,” he croaked, reaching out for her. 

Claire pushed away from Willie and swatted Grey’s hand away from her shoulder. She glared at him, scowling and vicious through her tears. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you bloody touch me!”

Grey lowered his hand. “I am sorry.” It was still a struggle to breathe and he gasped for air. “I came to tell you that—” Grey took another gulp of air. “That I am sorry. And to beg you to come back. He needs you.”

“You're _sorry_? He chose you!” Claire cried, climbing to her unsteady feet and backing away from the men. “I trusted you! And you fucked my husband behind my back and he chose _you_!” Tears streamed from her red-rimmed eyes.

“Only because you forced him to!” Grey stood as well, his knees like water, and staggered toward her. He thought he saw Willie and Ian backing off, giving them space, but he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter at this point. Nothing mattered except for Jamie slowly dying of a broken heart back in Philadelphia. “This is not about you or me, don’t you see? It’s about Jamie. I have never seen him so broken—never! And I was with him in Ardsmuir when the loss of you was still fresh and raw, when surviving Culloden was his greatest regret.”

“I was his wife, John! He’s not even attracted to men, still has nightmares about—”

“Madam, I think you had best speak to Jamie about that in private, should you not?” Grey didn’t know how much Willie and Ian knew about Jamie’s past and now was really not the time to let anymore figurative cats out of the proverbial bag. His stern interruption had been surprisingly effective though, and Claire stared at him, still trembling with anger and reaction, but silent.

Grey had caught his breath at last, and went on, calmly now. “He should have spoken to you first. I should have asked if he had. I should have insisted that he did from the very beginning—from _before_ the very beginning. I was too caught up in my own feelings and my own desires to consider the damage we were doing. It was abysmally selfish of me and I do not deserve your pardon or forgiveness so I will not even beg for them.” Grey approached Claire cautiously, slowly, afraid she would bolt. “I did not want to share him either. But I cannot stand to see him like this. I love Jamie, desperately. But he will never be whole without you. I know that this is difficult to understand, my dear, but I do sincerely believe that he loves us both. He is capable of that, you know.”

Claire’s mouth twitched. Some other time and place, where her world wasn’t burning to the ground, it might have led to a smile. “Jamie does tend to jump in with both feet, doesn’t he.”

“That he does,” Grey said, smiling. He chanced to put a hand on her upper arm and she permitted it. “As much as it tears my heart out to say this… if it will help you find your way back to him…” he swallowed hard, his throat suddenly unbearably tight. “I will leave. I think he would actually stand a chance of recovering from that. He will _not_ recover from the loss of you. Not like this.”

Claire narrowed her eyes at Grey. “After all this time, you’d just walk away from the one thing you have always wanted? Why?”

“Because there is not a thing I would not do for him, nothing I would not give him. A conversation, calm and rational. That is all I ask. After that…” Grey sighed. “After that, you can make your choice.”

Claire let out a deep sigh, a breeze rustling her skirts. “Fine. Fine. A conversation. I suppose I can hear him out. I can't…” She smoothed her leaf-littered hair away from her face with shaking hands. "I don't think I could survive another attempt with the stones after that."

Grey gave Claire’s arm a squeeze. “Thank you.” He offered his arm and she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow and permitted him to walk her back to Ian and Willie waiting with the horses. “Tell me,” he said as the horses came into view. “That horrible noise… I’ve never heard anything like it in my life.”

“What?” Claire gasped. She stopped short, dragging John to a halt. “You heard it?”

“Well, yes, of course. Did you not?” The thought that someone might _not_ have heard it was madness.

“Well, yes, _I_ heard it, all time travelers do. _Only_ time travelers do.” She gawked at him, eyes wide.

“Oh, Christ.”

* * *

There was an argument inside the Chestnut Street house. Male voices. One that Grey didn’t recognize, the other Jamie’s, coming from an open window upstairs. A Scottish woman, Jenny, speaking with authority but drowned out by the din of shouting men. Grey couldn't make out what they were arguing about. Jamie hardly sounded coherent. Something was very, _very_ wrong. 

Claire and John exchanged panicked glances, dismounted, and dashed up the steps and inside. The housekeeper was red-faced and in a state of absolute terror, but Claire shoved past her with barely a muttered apology, charging up the stairs. Grey leapt ahead of her, his primed pistol in hand. The shouting only got louder as they approached the bedroom door, which was open. 

Jenny stood over the bed, trying to restrain an enraged Jamie. He was laid out on the bed without a shirt, arm and chest covered in horrific bruises and a bloody bandage. His pallid skin glistened with fever sweat, his hair soaked with it, eyes wild. With his right hand, he fought against a man Grey didn’t recognize. On the floor, though, lay a bone saw, rusty-looking with crusted blood. 

Claire saw it too and her eyes went wide with fury as she whipped off her cloak and tossed it aside. She stormed to the bedside and pulled Jenny away. Grey went for the physician. He wasn’t a particularly large man, shorter than Grey, and he snatched him roughly by the collar of his wrinkled black coat and hauled him away from Jamie. 

The physician let out a squawk of alarm. Behind him, Jamie had fallen quiet. Claire shouted orders that Grey didn’t heed. He dragged the physician down to the ground with a thud and a _whoosh_ of expelled air as Grey knocked it from his lungs. He’d no intention of shooting the bastard, only frightening the piss out of him. By the smell of him, it was a successful tactic. 

“Please,” the man wheezed as he caught his breath. “Please. Amputation. Gangrene.”

Grey put a foot on the physician’s chest to hold him in place and angled his pistol at him. “I’d be still, if I were you.” He turned back toward the bed. Jamie lay staring at Claire, dazed and senseless, as if he stared at a ghost. 

Claire’s eyes were fierce, calculating, taking in a myriad of mysteries as she worked, calling for hot water, clean linen, sending Ian to fetch her medical kit from the print shop at a run. “Incompetent fucking butcher,” she spat. She addressed the physician on the floor but didn’t bother looking at him. Grey had him under control after all. “Can’t even disinfect and debride a wound. Jenny, the strongest alcohol you can find in the house, _now_. Did you even remove the ball, you stupid son of a bitch?”

“Sassenach…” Jamie mumbled.

“Quiet,” Claire snapped. “Bloody fool. Can’t be left alone for a single moment, can you?” She raised her voice at the doctor still laying on the floor under Grey’s boot. “I said, did you remove the ball?”

“Y-yes,” he stammered.

“The entire thing or fragments?”

“The entire thing.”

“Well, bravo,” Claire sneered. “Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut.”

Jamie cried out in pain and Grey flinched. He couldn’t bear that sound, hadn’t heard it in years. It broke his heart now too. 

“Lie still,” Claire ordered. Jamie quieted, his protests fading to a whimper and heavy breathing. 

Grey couldn’t make out what Claire was doing, cleaning the wound and examining it perhaps. Willie had brought her the boiling water and linens she’d asked for, Jenny rushing in with what appeared to be a bottle of raw whisky.

“Do you require this poltroon’s continued presence, madam?” Grey asked as the physician began to squirm. “Or shall I remove him from the premises?”

“Get that fucking idiot out of here before he tries to amputate another salvageable limb,” Claire answered. “And then come back and help me.”

“Gladly,” Grey answered. He shoved his pistol back in his belt, removed his foot from the physician’s chest and hauled him to his feet by his lapels. “I believe the lady says your services are no longer required.” The physician stooped to collect his implements and Grey shoved him hard on the back. “I’ll have them left on the front step for you. Now, out you go.” He yanked the man away from the door as Ian dashed in with Claire’s medical box.

The charlatan physician had been removed from the house, and after two hours of laboring bent over Jamie, Claire announced all that was left to be done was constant nursing and prayer. She sat in a chair at the head of the bed, hands clasped under her chin as she stared at Jamie, who'd fallen at last into a fitful sleep. He'd refused opium. Jamie did complain of dreadful nightmares from the stuff.

Grey handed Claire a glass of brandy. She accepted it, muttering her thanks. Her eyes were haunted, tired, conflicted. He really could make out every thought in her mind through her expressive face. She was worried, frightened for Jamie. Probably thinking about whatever modern marvels might have been at her disposal in her own time, how she might have gone about the business of saving Jamie’s life. And yet she couldn't seem to find stillness. She shifted in her seat or tapped her toe, like she still wanted to run.

"Thank God you were here,” Grey said in a low voice.

Claire took a long pull from her glass. After a very long pause, she nodded. “Did Jenny know who shot him?”

“No. Dark-haired man, she said. Looked English but he never spoke.” Grey watched Jamie’s chest rise and fall with his ragged breath. Dark anger surged through him, nameless, directionless, needing a target. “But she did not believe it to be a random attack. Whoever he is, the rest of your family may be in danger. I’ll find out who he is and make him answer for what he’s done. You have my word.”

Claire snorted. “ _Your word,_ ” she sneered. She looked up at him for the first time, eyes dark with disdain. “And what exactly is your _word_ worth these days, _Lord John_?” 

It stung like a slap across his face, but Grey swallowed down his offense. It was a fair question, given the circumstances. He set his own brandy glass on the bedside table and took a knee beside her on the floor, giving her the high ground. “There are no words that I could ever offer you to truly express how deeply I regret hurting you. When I took you as my wife I promised to protect you.”

“Because of Jamie.”

“Yes,” Grey replied immediately. “At first. Because of Jamie. Before that day, I thought of you first and foremost as my very dear friend’s wife. I considered you a friend also, for your own sake. Insomuch as is proper, given the circumstances of our acquaintance. And our time together, farcical though our marriage may have been, and experienced through a fog of truly profound grief, led me to discover a great deal of affection for you. It did not seem unthinkable to me that we should spend the rest of our lives together, comforting and caring for one another, in our own way. And now, for the first time since we met again in Jamaica, there has existed betrayal and lies between us. If there is a name for the love I feel for you, I do not know it. But for the sake of that love, I will work to earn your trust once more.”

Claire listened without further interruption, her eyes glistening with tears she was too angry and too proud to let fall. When Grey had finished, she took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. After an agonizing length of time to consider his words, she nodded. “Whatever happens,” she murmured, tilting her chin toward Jamie still asleep on the bed. “There’s no more lies or secrets between us. I much preferred our friendship when I trusted you implicitly.”

“As did I, my dear,” John agreed. “I wish to find our way back there.”

“Me too.”

Grey took her hand and she squeezed back. “You must be exhausted. Why don’t you get some rest and I’ll watch over him. I promise to fetch you should he need you.”

Claire’s eyes darted from Grey to Jamie and back again. At last she nodded. “Alright.” She stifled a yawn.

Grey stood and offered his hand, which she accepted and let him pull her to her feet. “I asked that your old room be prepared for you.”

She nodded, and after one last look at Jamie, left, her footsteps fading on the hall carpet.

Jamie’s jaw muscles tensed and twitched in his sleep and Grey smoothed the wet hair back from his clammy brow. “Oh, my love,” Grey whispered. “Don’t you dare leave it like this.”

* * *

Jamie’s fever settled in quickly, hitting him like a hammer. Grey and Claire worked relentlessly to cool and hydrate him, to get nourishment into him. _Infection_ , she had called it. She swore a lot, cursed her lack of particular medicinals that Grey couldn’t fathom. They took it in turns to dribble water into Jamie’s mouth, just a few drops at a time. Grey did his best to serve as an adequate assistant, fetching or holding things as Claire required, restraining Jamie if he thrashed under her ministrations.

Eventually, Ian returned with a cup bearing a quantity of writhing maggots. Grey suppressed a shudder as Claire gingerly placed them into Jamie’s wound, muttering oaths and threats at her unconscious husband. With a final exhalation of, “Jesus H Roosevelt Christ,” she retreated to the hearth where she’d left the “quack’s” implements to boil and set herself to the business of scrubbing, cleaning, boiling, and sanitizing each tool. A tempest of dark emotions swirled about her—frustration, fear, anger. For the most part, Grey had kept quiet through all of this, unsure what to say, afraid to break Claire’s concentration. _Don’t you dare leave us,_ he prayed silently, over and over. 

“Bloody fool,” Claire muttered, and Grey couldn’t be sure who she was referring to—himself, Jamie, or the physician—though he supposed it didn’t matter. “If he’d just… _talked to me_. If he would have just told me, before. Why didn’t he confide in me? I would have listened, could have tried to understand.”

_Jamie then._ Guilt raced through John, flipped his stomach into a knot. The sight of her pain though, at last overshadowing her worry and frustration for Jamie, made Grey’s heart ache. He moistened Jamie’s lips with a few drops of water and rose from his perch on the edge of the bed to go to Claire’s side.

“And I don’t understand, not really,” she went on in that quiet rambling voice more directed to herself than to any listener. “But I want to understand. What he said about not loving Bree or Willie any less… it made sense, I think. But… _why_ wouldn’t he have told me first?” Claire dropped the saw she was cleaning back into the pot of boiling water, hissing a curse as it splashed against her hand.

Grey took her burnt hand in both of his and examined it. It was red but probably wouldn’t blister. “I cannot speak for Jamie. But if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was likely a distrust of himself rather than you. Fear of the unknown, perhaps. Or worry, I suppose, that you would think him weak or perverse. Worry that he _was_ weak or perverse, or wrong about his own feelings. The world is not kind to men who are drawn to men. In my experience, that has included Jamie’s own mind. I can only imagine the conflict and, perhaps, shame he may have felt at his own feelings.”

Claire allowed Grey to squeeze her arm. “I hit him, John.” She looked up at him at last, tears bravely held in check. “I was angry and my heart was breaking, and it’s no excuse. And now, if he dies, his last memory of us will be violent and ugly.” She lost her resolve, and the tears fell. 

“Oh, my dear.” Grey wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into an embrace. “You will save him. Jamie is a bloody warrior of a man, and damned difficult to kill. As are you. A warrior, that is. And this is your battlefield.”

She laid her cheek against Grey’s shoulder and made a noise midway between a sob and a laugh. “Jamie says that too.”

“It’s accurate, is it not?” Grey said. Claire had plucked the leaves and bracken from her hair, but under the burning scent of the alcohol she’d been wiping everything down with, she still smelled of the road. It felt good to hold her, Grey thought. To offer her comfort and for her to accept it, as they had while they both had grieved for Jamie and fallen asleep in each other’s arms to keep the sorrow at bay.

“It does feel that way, sometimes,” Claire agreed. She took a deep breath, some of the tension going out of her. She stirred at last and straightened, but didn’t move away from Grey. Little by little over the past day, the easiness between them had begun to return, taking them back toward that place where they could care for each other. 

Grey slid his hands up her arms to her shoulders and neck, massaging the tight muscles there. Claire’s eyes fell closed and she let out a groan of relief as he worked the knots out.

“Thank you,” she said at last. “For stopping me going through the stones.”

“You’re welcome,” Grey answered automatically. “He does need you. And, if I’m being perfectly honest, so do I.”

* * *

“What was he like?” Claire asked. “The years that I was gone. I know what Jamie’s told me about his life then, which was almost everything, I suspect. But I want to know it through the eyes of someone who loves him and was there.”

Grey let out a long sigh, considering the question. They sat close together on the floor near the fireplace, watching Jamie fade in and out of nightmares. “Well, you know of the events. That he missed you terribly, loved you fiercely even though it hurt him more. The first time I can recall seeing him smile in Ardsmuir was when he spoke of you. At the time, I admit that I prayed for him to let you go, thinking it only stubborn grief and mourning. I remember being in awe of the devotion and passion that could exist in a man’s heart to carry that for so long, to think of a person as still alive even though he spoke in the past tense.” Grey gave a snort of laughter. “Little did I know that was closer to the literal truth.”

Claire’s smile was wistful, if tired, and she hummed in a rather convincing imitation of one of Jamie’s expressive Scottish noises. “What made him happy? Did you ever see him living in the moment?”

“He quite enjoyed leading me to believe I would win at chess, and then at the last moment surprise me with a sound defeat.” They both laughed, and Grey’s heart skipped a beat to hear Claire’s joy, temporary though it may have been. They fell back into a comfortable silence for a time, and Claire rested her head on John’s shoulder, John draped his arm around her. He wore only his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and her body was warm against him. “We discussed philosophy or military strategies. Sometimes we spoke about nothing in particular in Greek or French, just for the practice. He thrived in those quiet moments of intellect. Sometimes when I visited Helwater, I’d watch him alone with the horses before I made my presence known. He seemed… at peace, then. Exercising his mind or working the horses, that brought him something like happiness, for a time. But the happiest I ever saw him was when he spoke of you.”

Claire made a sleepy sound of acknowledgement. When Grey looked down, he saw that her eyes were closed. "You were a good friend to him when he was alone."

Grey idly ran his fingers over Claire's loose curls and she relaxed against him. "I tried, as best as could be managed given the circumstances."

"Jamie has never had much of that in his life. Someone who didn't demand things of him. I know there were times you had to. But I don’t believe you ever took advantage of him, and I think that’s rare in his life. Thank you. For caring for him. I’m glad to know he had someone who loved him when I wasn’t here.”

“Loving him has always been as natural as breathing,” Grey said without thinking. He tensed, prepared for Claire to grow angry, to lash out. 

But she didn’t. “I know. I see that now, watching you these past few days.”

“It was never my intention to take him from you.”

“I believe you. I didn’t at first, when I was angry. But if you had intended to steal him away, you wouldn’t have come after me.”

They fell into another intimate silence, shadowed by their worry for Jamie, groaning in his sleep. "What about yourself?" Grey murmured. "Did you have someone to love you?"

Claire sighed, the sound dreamy but sad. "I had my first husband, though the love between us was hardly unconditional. And I had a very dear friend. We both had to fight for our chance to be doctors, and we worked together after medical school. But I could never speak of Jamie to him.”

“It rips at the soul to keep love a secret, doesn’t it?”

She hummed in the affirmative. “Yes, it does.”

“I’m glad you had a friend. I cannot bear the thought of you suffering alone.”

“I was lonely but not really alone.” Jamie let out a whimper and Claire pulled away from Grey to climb to her feet and go to his side. 

Grey followed, wiping the sweat from Jamie’s brow with a damp cloth while Claire examined him. _Checking his vitals_ , as she called it. Such strange words had quickly become a comfort to him, as if the speaking of them could conjure some divine intervention on Jamie’s behalf. Assured once again that Jamie’s death was not imminent, Grey and Claire stood next to each other at the foot of the bed.

“I need you too, you know,” Claire said. “What you said the other day, about the love you feel for me that doesn’t have a name. I think I understand. I don’t know what to call it either. It’s not…. _Friendship_ and it’s not _passion_. It’s not even terribly romantic. No offense,” she added with a wry smile.

“None taken.”

“But it’s… affection, perhaps? Something more.” Claire shook her head. “I don’t think I’m making sense. And perhaps we don’t need a name for it and it’s wrong to try to define it.”

As he had with increasing frequency, Grey found himself driven to put his arms around Claire and hold her close. His heart still ached for the hurt he and Jamie had caused her, something in him reaching out for the person he had clung to, had found relief in touching and vice versa. Claire was reaching out too, wrapped her arms around his waist. Grey returned the embrace and pressed his lips to her forehead. 

He’d not thought beforehand about the gesture carrying any particular significance, thinking only that they could both benefit from the intimacy. Claire looked up at him in the wake of it, stared into his eyes until Grey thought he might turn to stone. 

It didn’t happen particularly fast nor with any exaggerated slowness. One moment they held each other’s gaze, and the next Claire kissed him. It was closed lips and on the chaste side, but it lingered and Grey found it oddly thrilling in a beguiling sort of way, as if his body remembered hers. Spirit-soaked flashes of desperate grief. Mad, misdirected desire followed by a tragic physical release. His breath caught in his throat.

Claire licked her lips when she pulled away. “I’ll take this watch,” she whispered. “You haven’t slept since yesterday.”

With one last squeeze of Claire's hand to assure them both of—what? Grey took his silent leave, the door clicking shut behind him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fills my Outlander Bingo square **Jamie/Claire/John**

Jamie's throat was dry and he moved his tongue to try to get enough saliva worked up to speak. He regretted it instantly. The taste in his mouth was indescribably horrid and he grimaced, trying to get up the courage to open his eyes. He managed it at last and was treated to the sight of Claire looming over him, relief in her beautiful amber eyes.

"Oh, thank God," she breathed. Her hands were warm and blessedly solid on his bare skin. "Don't move too much, you're probably weak as a kitten. How do you feel?"

"Like hammered shite," he groaned. "Did ye gi' me opium? Had the strangest dream."

Claire's brows knit together and she stopped her prodding to peer into his eyes. "No, I didn't."

"Must've been the fever then," Jamie groaned. "I could've sworn I saw ye kiss John."

She went very still. "Oh."

It took him a moment, but once he recognized the guilt on her face, Jamie found his way to alertness. “Oh?”

Claire exhaled sharply through her nose. “Yes, alright? Yes, I bloody kissed John. I was scared and worried and hurting and I thought you were going to die, you damned Scot. And John was here and we—”

Jamie laughed and shook his head. “Christ, Sassenach, ye dinna need to ramble on like I’m going to yell. I’m not.”

She arched a skeptical brow down at him. “Are you not?” Claire snorted. “Well there is a first time for everything.”

“I deserved that.” Jamie hauled himself upright, awkward with his injured shoulder and only his right arm for leverage, and Claire propped the pillows up behind him. “Speaking of John, is he about? I want to talk to the both of ye.”

“No, he and Willie are trying to discover who shot you.” Claire held a cup of water to Jamie’s lips and let him drink. “Jenny gave them a description and they’re making inquiries around town. I’m not sure what they intend to do but John was adamant he’d see justice served.”

Closing his eyes, Jamie leaned his head back against the headboard, calling up the memory of being shot. It was still fuzzy, distant, buried behind the fog of fever dreams. Something about the man’s face…

Recognition surged through Jamie, panic hot on its heels. He threw the bedclothes aside and scrambled to get up. 

“Jamie! Stop, what are you doing?” Claire demanded, shooting to her feet and blocking his path with her body. “Get back in bed. What’s the matter with you?”

He’d stood up too fast, his vision going black around the edges, and Jamie stumbled, catching himself against the wall with his uninjured arm. "Randall," Jamie gasped, gulping air and fighting to steady himself. 

" _Jack_ Randall?" Claire gawked at him, goggle eyed. "But he’s dead."

Jamie shook his head and regretted it. "Nay, no' him." He fumbled his shirt over his head, wincing and gritting his teeth against the pain. "His son—Mary Hawkins' son."

Claire helped him tuck his shirt into his breeches. "You _know_ him?"

"Not personally, no. _Merde_. Will ye help me wi' this?" Jamie held up his waistcoat and Claire guided his injured arm carefully through it. "Willie kens him, said he was a spy for the British. I've never met him before but… I'd ken those eyes anywhere."

Stepping back, Claire crossed her arms over her chest and met his gaze with eyes haunted by old fear and dread. She was readying herself to pick up an ancient argument. "What do you mean to do?"

"Save him." Jamie worked his feet into his boots and Claire knelt to help buckle them. 

"You don't think John would kill him, do you?" 

Jamie almost answered in the negative but stopped short when his mind treated him to the memory of a long-ago bloody morning, of carrying John’s unconscious and horrifically battered body off of the duello field. “I dinna ken,” he answered truthfully. “He’s killed on my behalf before. If it was you or him who was shot, I would kill the bastard responsible.” 

Claire finished buckling his boots and Jamie captured both of her hands in his. “There isna time for me to tell ye all the things I need to say to ye. But I swear to ye that I will make the time. For now… I shouldna held Frank against ye, and I’ll beg yer forgiveness.” Jamie pressed his lips to the simple gold band on her left hand. “I am grateful that he kept ye and Brianna safe when I couldna. Will ye help me ensure he has a chance to be born?”

As far as rescues went, the race against time to save Denys Randall-Isaacs from uncertain doom was rather anticlimactic. They found Grey, Willie, and Ian after little more than an hour or so of systematic searching, though Jamie was pale and shaking and leaning heavily on Claire by the time they did. Willie and Ian took it in turns to embrace him, breathing sighs of relief to see him up and about. John gave Claire a wary eye and settled for a watery smile. 

“I’m fairly certain it was Randall-Isaacs who shot you, Father,” Willie said. “We believe he’s rejoined the British camp. Now, I propose that we—”

Jamie stopped him with a gesture, catching his breath. “Nay, let him go.”

Willie’s eyes popped wide. “Why in God’s name should we do that?”

“Because,” Jamie said, meeting Claire’s gaze for a moment. “He’s important to Claire. Or, rather, his descendant will be. And I’ll no’ abide the vengeance an’ it hurts her or Brianna. So long as the danger’s past, it’s for the best if we let this one go, aye?”

“Of course, Jamie,” John interjected before Willie could argue. “If that’s what is best, then that is what we shall do.”

“Thank you,” Claire said. She glared up at Jamie with an expression that permitted no argument. “Now, you look like hell. So if you’re quite finished trying to undo all of our hard work to keep you alive, let’s get you back to bed.”

Ian and Willie took up positions on either side of Jamie—who stubbornly refused to let Claire hire a chair, probably to the relief of all the chairmen in Philadelphia—and made the careful trek back to Chestnut Street. Once they’d gotten Jamie safely up the stairs, John took over support of Jamie himself, getting his good arm draped over his shoulders and taking his weight. Jamie heard Claire’s low voice behind them in the hallway, assuring Ian that they would be quite alright, and why don’t they go enjoy their afternoon.

“Come on, Cousin,” Willie said. “Let’s go see if Fergus needs us to make a mess of anything before supper.”

Jamie waved off John’s efforts to get him into the bed and John narrowed his eyes at him. “Jamie, you’ve overdone it as it is,” he said, voice stern but low.

“Nay, I’m fine. Tis but a scratch,” Jamie replied, stubbornly dragging two chairs next to each other.

“Like hell it’s a _scratch_ ,” Claire countered, closing the door behind her. She hovered there with her arms crossed, staring Jamie down.

“Will ye both stop looking at me as if I’d drop dead on the spot?” Jamie gestured at the two chairs. “If I dinna say this now I’ll lose my nerve or die of the shame. Please. Both of ye, sit.”

Claire and John exchanged skeptical looks before lowering themselves into the chairs, Claire sighing in resignation at Jamie’s bullheadedness. “Fine,” she said. “But then you need to eat. Gallivanting about Philadelphia still half-dead from fever. You could have died you kn—”

“ _Sassenach_ ,” Jamie pleaded, getting onto his knees on the floor at her feet. He bit his cheek to stifle an unmanly wince. Taking Claire’s hands in his, Jamie looked up into her lovely eyes. Fear welled up inside him, fear that he would say the wrong thing, that she wouldn’t listen. That she’d stick to her previous decision and end it between them once and for all. She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself, and waited for him to speak. 

Steeling himself, Jamie lept in. “Claire… I have wronged you. The things I did behind yer back, I did them out of—out of love for John. And out of cowardice. And I did not consider you, when ye should always be foremost in my mind. Ye trusted me to guard yer heart and to be honest wi’ ye and I didna. I ken I dinna deserve it, but I beg yer pardon for being dishonorable. And for being a coward. And for breaking yer heart. I pray that one day I will earn yer forgiveness.” He pressed his lips to the backs of Claire’s knuckles, then turned her hands over and kissed her palms. “I am truly sorry that I betrayed ye.”

“Jamie…” she whispered. 

“It’s alright, _mo neighan donn_ ,” Jamie said. The conflict written all over her face broke his heart in two, but he held it together. He didn’t have the strength to weep, was long out of tears, no matter how much he dreaded to hear her reaction. There was always the coming solstice. She may yet go back to Brianna, and Jamie refused to manipulate her with his own sorrow. It was _her choice._ “Wait, aye?” he whispered. “Just wait.”

Claire breathed in deep through her nose, holding onto her own flood of emotions. At last she nodded, folding her hands in her lap when Jamie let them go.

Jamie turned to John and took his hands this time. “And John… I have also wronged you.” John’s brow furrowed as he stared down at him, silent. Jamie swallowed hard. “I acted impulsively and put ye in a position to do the same. I shouldna come to ye as I did wi’out Claire’s blessing. My cowardice made an adulterer out of us both, and for that I beg yer pardon as well.” He likewise pressed his lips to John’s knuckles.

“Thank you, Jamie,” John said, a hint of astonishment in his voice, but mostly something else. If John had been looking at anyone else on earth, Jamie might have taken it for a kind of admiration. But it couldn't have been that because Jamie had been anything but admirable.

“Yes, thank you for that,” Claire added. Her voice was shaky but calm.

Jamie kept one of John’s hands in his left and reached over to take Claire’s again with his right. The tension between the three of them was still a palpable thing, but no one was yelling and no one had any fresh bruises. All in all, a decent sign.

“I love ye both beyond reason and measure,” Jamie said. “Ye must ken that. Claire, ye’re my wife. The first person I ever loved. I have loved ye lifetimes ago and I shall love ye lifetimes from now. You have given me children and grandchildren, and all the love in yer heart. Ye’ve crossed centuries for me, and braved heartache and terror. I ken I’m no’ always an easy man to love, but ye have nonetheless. And if ye can still find it in yer heart to love me after all of this, I swear to spend the rest of my mortal days just to be worthy of that. If ye canna... ” Jamie took a deep breath and kept an iron grip on his emotions which threatened to boil over any moment. "If ye canna, then I understand."

Claire offered him a brave smile, just a wee one. “Even after all of this, after nearly going through the stones again… And I would have if it hadn’t been for John. I do love you, Jamie.” She leaned forward and kissed him. It was just a soft brush of their lips, but it was a lifeline, hope, something he could cling to and keep from drowning.

“John, ye have been my friend all these years, even though I didna make it easy for ye. When I thought I had no one else on this earth, ye were there. Ye raised my son into a fine man when I couldna. Ye looked after my daughter when I wasna there. Ye protected and cared for my wife when I couldna. And ye gave me my son back. It took me too long to understand how I feel for ye. And I swear to spend the rest of my mortal days just to be worthy of that, too.”

John squeezed Jamie’s hand. “I love you, Jamie. You cannot imagine what a relief it is to say that like this, out loud, in the open.”

“And I you, _mo leannan_ ,” Jamie said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had to swallow down a gasp, the last vestiges of his courage all that kept him from panicking. But it was the truth. And it felt indescribably good and right to speak those words, even though Claire could hear. Especially because Claire could hear.

Claire blinked, looking a bit unsteady, but held tight to Jamie’s other hand. There was not disgust or anger, only contemplation and calculation. She wasn’t going to run off screaming, then. At least, not yet.

“All I have in this world is because of the two of ye,” Jamie said. “Ye’ve both saved my life more times than I can count. Ye’ve both stood by me when I needed it and didna deserve it. Ye’ve both given me the most important thing in the world—my family.” He paused, looked at the rug under his knees, swallowing around a sudden lump in his throat. He’d shed too many tears for this, and he wouldn’t shed another. Clutching both their hands close to his heart, Jamie plunged on. “What I feel for each of ye isna the same thing. Claire, my love for ye fell upon me all at once, hot and consuming. And John, my love for you was built brick by brick with yer bare hands over many, many years of patiently loving me.” Jamie was close enough to them to feel the warmth of their bodies through their clothing. As exhausted as he was, he would have given anything in that moment to lie down between them and sleep for three days. “After all of that which has passed between us, how could I no’ love ye both?”

Claire let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “You can’t.” She opened her eyes again and looked from John to Jamie. “When you lay it out like that, it makes perfect sense. You’re right, I think. The heart does make room.”

The weight of the world lifted from Jamie’s shoulders, but still he held his breath. “And can there no’ be love between you two?” he asked.

“There is, of a kind,” said John, turning to Claire. “For my part, at least.”

Claire smiled at him. “Mine too. It doesn’t have a name, but...”

John returned her smile, warm and affectionate, and Jamie thought of the hazy fever-dream memory of the two of them kissing each other. “But it doesn’t need a name to be something real and good.”

“ _Dio gratias,_ ” Jamie breathed, awash with relief, his head swimming with it. He wobbled, gripping John and Claire’s hands tight to keep from keeling over.

“What _exactly_ are you proposing?” John asked. “You said you wanted us both, but I think—uncomfortable though it may be—it’s best if we reach a very specific state of understanding between us.”

Jamie blew out a breath, shaking off the fuzzy feeling in his head. What did it look like? He closed his eyes for a moment, let his mind wander until it landed on the image that felt like home. The vision he landed on, what made his heart soar and flutter all at once, was making love to them both. Loving them both, worshipping them both with his body, saying all the things to them that he never could with words. And beyond that, caring for them both, being a partner to each of them. Sharing their lives completely. The multiplication of the love between them, not the division of it.

But he _needed_ words for this. His neglect of words had put them in this wretched situation to begin with. What to call it, though? _Bigamy_ didn’t taste right. Ah, there it was, outside of English.

“ _Mènage á trois_ ,” Jamie said at last.

Claire swore and shot to her feet, taking a few steps away to put some distance between them, her back turned.

John blinked down at him, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. Eventually he had to take a breath. “You mean, you propose that the three of us…”

Jamie turned at the sound of the door opening. He scrambled to his feet, panic hammering away in his chest. If she left again... “Claire, wait!” 

“Don’t say another word until I get back,” she called from the stairs.

“Claire—” Jamie stumbled, his knees gone numb from putting all his weight on them on the hard floor. John was by his side in an instant, catching him.

“I said not another word!” Claire’s voice was far away and strained… headed for the kitchen maybe?

“You really should be in bed,” John whispered, as if afraid to disobey Claire’s order, even for the greater good.

Jamie let John guide him to the bed and push him to sit on the mattress. John undid what Claire had done for him—unbuckling his boots and setting them aside, unbuttoning his coat and waistcoat, working these carefully off. John’s touch felt indescribably good, but it was a far cry from the mad passion of their illicit rendezvous. With firm hands and a stern eye, John maneuvered Jamie into the bed, propped up against a pile of pillows. Smoothing the quilt over Jamie’s legs, John kissed him on the mouth, tender reassurance for the both of them.

The room was obediently silent when Claire returned with bottles of spirits cradled in one arm, glasses in the other, and the housekeeper behind her with a tray of hastily assembled morsels. All of these items were deposited on the little table. “Thank you,” Claire said. The housekeeper curtsied and closed the door behind her. Claire bolted it.

Without a word of preamble, Claire piled a variety of food on a plate and thrust it at Jamie. “I forbid you to collapse with exhaustion until this is over.” She raised an expectant brow, her stare withering.

Jamie nodded and took a bite without much noticing what it was. He watched Claire stalk back to the table, pour two very full glasses of amber spirits, a third slightly less-so, and took a long pull from one of the full glasses. She gave John the other full one and set the smaller glass on the bedside table more or less within Jamie’s reach. Taking another drink of her own, Claire sank heavily into her vacated chair, which Jamie noticed was close enough to the table that she could reach the bottle. “Alright,” she said at last, fixing her eyes on Jamie. “Go on.”

He’d come too far to turn coward now. He was so close, at least they were all talking. “My heart has made room for ye both. And, I think, yer hearts have made room for each other as well. In a manner of speaking. Have they no'?"

John and Claire exchanged glances, and Claire tipped up her glass to take a long drink. She and John both nodded and murmured in the affirmative.

“Jamie, what you’re proposing, this _household of three_ …” John gave a kind of helpless shrug. “How would that work? You and Claire could obviously live here with me, there’s plenty of room and privacy. And Willie is already aware of our… unorthodox situation.”

Claire gave a rather unladylike snort into her glass. John shot her a concerned glance but she just waved a hand for him to continue and reached for the decanter.

“A... schedule? Perhaps?” John said, looking from Jamie to Claire and back again. 

Absently crunching into an apple, Jamie considered it. It _could_ work. “There’s a thought.”

“We already spend most of our days together as it is,” John went on, emboldened. “We can take the nights in turn. Claire and I could each have our own room, and Jamie, you can alternate every other night between them.”

His glass was far enough away that Jamie had to stretch to reach it. It was whisky, of course. He nodded, setting the glass down, closer this time. The proposal wasn’t precisely what he wanted, but Jamie didn’t want to push John or Claire into something physical with each other that they weren’t comfortable with. “That sounds fair.”

“Jesus H Roosevelt Christ,” Claire muttered, rubbing her forehead with one hand as if to fend off a headache. “And what happens when John tires you out and you end up leaving me wanting? Hmm? Or vice versa?” She fixed Jamie with a skeptical glare. “You’re nearly sixty. Or have you forgotten?” She shook her head and failed miserably at suppressing an amused grin and opted instead to hide it behind her glass. “You’re strong as an ox, Jamie Fraser, but eventually _something_ is going to wear out. And believe me, you don’t want your cock to be first.”

Jamie winced. She had a damned good point. Maybe every other night was a bit much. “Every third night, maybe?” he suggested. 

John chewed on his lower lip for a moment, considering it. “I suppose that would work. And, of course I’d defer to Claire’s preference on—”

“Nay, John, I dinna wish for ye to feel ye’re no’ an equal partner in this,” Jamie said. 

“It’s not that, Jamie. I understand…” John trailed off, suddenly looking uncertain, skittish. 

Jamie leaned forward to take hold of his hand, squeezing it gently. “Tis no’ a competition and it isna about hierarchy, ken?”

“Except it’s going to be,” Claire interjected. She drained her glass and set it down on the table with a _clunk_. “Even if it isn’t now, it’s going to end up that way. There’s always going to exist a feeling of competition between John and I for your attention. No matter if we alternate nights or weeks or something in between.” She raised her eyebrows at John. “Can you not feel it already? I can. You’re deferring to me and Jamie is telling you not to. And we haven’t decided on a goddamn thing yet and I’m already jealous.” Claire stood and paced the floor. “I don’t like this.” She shook her head. “I don’t like feeling jealous. Jamie, I can’t stand it. I don’t like thinking about what’s different between you and I and you and John. I don’t like comparing myself to him and I don’t think he should have to compare himself to me.”

John sighed. “You’re right, of course.”

“I bloody know I’m right!”

And here it was, Jamie thought. Here was where it all disappeared, where the sand ran between his fingers and fell away, never to be retrieved again. He set the plate on the table, unable to take another bite for the writhing knots of regret in his guts. The whisky went down easily enough though. “Claire…”

She whirled back to face them, her skirts twirling wide around her legs. “I thought you were both men of the world.”

Jamie and John blinked at each other. “What do you mean?” John asked.

“ _Mènage á trois,_ ” Claire said. “Do you not know what that means? The colloquialism?”

Jamie blinked at her. “It’s French for—” 

“I _know_ what it’s French for, I _speak_ French,” Claire said. She stared at their blank faces as if they were incredibly naive. “Maybe it hasn’t been coined yet—though God knows why not. But it’s a word for sex between three people. _Three people_ , Jamie. At the same time.”

“I dinna wish to make a bigamist out of ye, Sassenach—”

“Except you have,” Claire said. “And for some reason, God only knows, I still love you.” She paused and looked at Grey, something unnameable passing between them. “And I’m comfortable with John.” She crossed the room to stand next to the bed. “So perhaps it comes down to needs and wants. It’s clear to me that you need both John and me. And I need you, whole and happy and living. And John needs you the same way. And we all need to be loved and cared for and wanted. Am I wrong?”

“Not at all,” John answered. 

Jamie shook his head, both in answer to Claire’s question and to shake his thoughts into order. “Can we do this?” he asked. “Can we make it a true marriage between the three of us?” He looked at John, his heart pounding with hopeful anticipation. But he kept it in check, not wishing to pressure John or Claire into anything they weren’t comfortable with.

John’s gaze took in Claire from top to bottom and back again before settling into a little, conspiratorial smile. “The body remembers. And is willing, I think.”

Claire laid a hand on John’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, returning the smile. “Yes, I think so too.”

To Jamie’s relieved astonishment—and excitement—the thing that passed between them filled Jamie not with jealousy but with desire. He said nothing, afraid of breaking the spell, of spoiling whatever madness had settled between them and brought them here.

“But,” Claire went on, turning to Jamie though she kept her hand on John. “If we do this. Jamie, if we make room in our hearts—and our bed—for three… There is no more room for secrets. At all. We are open with each other—all three of us—completely. No matter how uncomfortable or difficult it is. Agreed?” She arched an expectant brow at both men.

“Of course,” John said. He took Claire’s hand from his shoulder and pressed his lips to her knuckles.

Jamie smiled. “Agreed.” And then it was over—or rather, beginning anew. He grabbed both of their hands in his and pulled them close. They came willingly, Claire perching on the side of the bed while John leaned across Jamie’s lap. He kissed Claire, then John, and if he hadn’t spent all his tears wallowing in misery for the last two weeks, Jamie would have wept from the relief of it. To hold them both, at the same time, at last. To be free of the lies, to be on the road through the betrayal and the guilt, bound for openness. Honest love— _finally_ —between them.

The damnable thing was that Jamie _had_ exhausted himself running around Philadelphia before he had any right to be out of bed, and over the course of their emotional conversation. He couldn't hate Denys Randall for it though. There was a distinct possibility that, had he not been shot, Claire and John might never have had the opportunity to get to this place of tenderness and affection between them. 

The whisky had settled itself warm and soothing in Jamie's belly. Between that and the breaking of the stress, he could have dropped off into a dead sleep immediately. But the need to touch his loves, to be touched by them, to seal their new arrangement with some physical union was too great to ignore completely. The spirit was more than willing if the body could just try to keep up. 

Claire stood and flung the bedclothes off Jamie’s legs. With a nod and quiet word to John to help Jamie out of his breeches, Claire went to work on his shirt. Her hands were tender and careful as she guided his injured arm out of its sleeve, warm on his bare chest, her lips soft on his mouth. “We’ll take care of each other. The three of us. Yes?”

They hadn’t built up the fire and the air in the room was chilly over his bare skin, erupting into gooseflesh down his arms and thighs. “Aye,” Jamie replied. He hadn’t felt this combination of nervous thrill since the night he’d wed Claire. It was foolish, he reminded himself. He’d made love to both of them before—and John and Claire had bedded each other—but this was entirely different. Of course he’d fantasized about it, imagined what it would be like to have them both together. But fantasy and reality weren’t the same thing. 

Or perhaps they were more similar than Jamie had originally thought. Claire took John’s coat from his shoulders, a simple, kind gesture, true enough. And then his waistcoat, which she mostly unbuttoned herself. Then John unfastened Claire’s bodice and he might as well have been dragging the skin-warmed fabric over Jamie’s cock. 

Jamie’s breath caught in his throat. Watching Claire and John undress each other, get comfortable and acquainted with each other’s bodies with murmured words and inquisitive glances… Every bit of skin they revealed to each other carefully studied, caressed, kissed—Oh, _God_. Jamie stared openly at them, tugging on his own cock, hard and desperate for them. Christ, he must be dreaming. He turned his gaze heavenward, but there was nothing bizarre, nothing out of the ordinary, just the plaster ceiling. 

John’s hand came down onto Jamie’s, gently nudging it away from his cock. “Let me,” he whispered, kissing the inside of Jamie’s thigh. 

Claire nipped at Jamie’s neck and his earlobe. “I missed you,” she said, her breath warm and moist in his ear. “Make me scream.”

“Oh God, aye,” Jamie said. John’s mouth was hot and wet and sudden on his cock. “Oh, _God, aye_ ,” he repeated. Claire laid down next to him in what might have been a rough approximation of _soixante neuf_ , except it was John she turned her attention to. With some gentle, experimental caresses and a brief nod from John, she took Grey’s prick into her mouth.

Jamie knew how good that wicked mouth of hers felt, and John’s pleasured moan sent delicious vibrations to Jamie’s core. Claire spread her legs for him, and Jamie dove in. Christ, the taste of her. The feel of her on his tongue, under his lips. All the specific motions and attentions that made her writhe under his hands, reflected for himself in John’s treatment of him.

It was the first time, the last time, every time, absolutely everything. For the three of them to find pleasure in each other’s bodies, their hands always on the move, connecting them, communicating in a language more eloquent than all their words could ever hope to be. _This_ , Jamie thought. _This is right. This is home_. 

A shudder ran through Claire, another moan from John, an answer from Jamie. The effect was circuitous, tracing the circle, spiraling them toward oblivion. Claire’s scream was muffled by John’s cock in her mouth. Jamie didn’t hold himself back from the edge when his pleasure burst through him. John drank his release.

All that existed was the sound of their labored breaths, the taste of each other’s mouths, lips and tongues colliding in lazy, almost-kisses, all at the same time familiar yet new and wonderful. The heat of their bodies, pressed tight together, Jamie’s arms around John and Claire both, John pulling the bedclothes over them. Intrusive drowsiness fell over Jamie, closing his eyes. To hold them both, to have loved them both—for them to have each pleasured the other—was unparalleled. The relief and joy was so consummate that Jamie’s heart felt as if it would burst from his chest.

“Dear Lord, how I love ye both,” Jamie murmured, beginning to drift. Claire and John both kissed Jamie’s chest. They might have whispered something approximating agreement, but he faded in and out of sleep.

“I’m glad we talked about it,” John said, voice low and dreamy.

“So am I,” Claire whispered. She took John’s hand and tangled their fingers together, letting them rest on Jamie’s chest between them.

Jamie was out of words. He pressed kisses into Claire’s wild curls, then John’s mussed hair, breathing in the smell of them, locking the memory in place in his heart forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we have it. I don't typically break the fourth wall and leave notes at the end of a story, but this one was... well, it was different. It challenged the "accepted" narrative. And even though I tagged it correctly, there were days I felt like I was fighting for my right to tell this story, which is just silly and perhaps a bit on the dramatic side. But I'm glad that happened. 
> 
> And as of the day of posting Chapter 6, I only deleted one comment. I left up the good, the bad, the ugly. Because I know that there is someone reading this, wanting to start writing in this fandom, and they're afraid to. You don't have to be afraid to. The stories that challenge things are just as worthy and valuable as the ones that happily toe the line; they might just require a little more fortitude on the part of the author. At the end of it all, I can take pride in the fact that I made so many people feel something, whatever that _something_ may have been.
> 
> If this was a story that you needed to read, that spoke to you on a deep, personal level, it is my gift to you. For the many readers who expressed support in the comments, or on Tumblr, even privately, thank you. It's also for you. And for the few of you who held my hand when I was nervous to post an update, who were my sounding board, a hundred thousand thank yous to you. 
> 
> I appreciate you.


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